Scientific Committee:

Lee Cronin / University of Glasgow, UK

Martin G. Hicks, Carsten Kettner / Beilstein-Institut

David A. Winkler / CSIRO Manufacturing, Clayton, Australia

ASPECTS COVERED BY THIS CONFERENCE

• From abiological environments to synthetic life
• How much chemistry is required to launch a living minimal system or how to evolve non-biological materials towards biological desirable properties?
• Mimicking biological functions and properties with means from the chemist’s kitchen
• Evolution of diversity (chirality, promiscuity, autocatalysis, self-organization, regulation and control)
• Epigenetics as non-coding elements to drive and regulate development

SPEAKERS

Steven Benner / The Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Alachua, USA
Constraining Chemical Models for the Origin of Darwinism

Donna Blackmond / The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA
Chirality and Prebiotic Chemistry

Dieter Braun / Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Germany
Replication towards Complexity with Thermal Gradients

Timothy Clark / Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
G-Protein Coupled Receptors: Answers from Simulations

Shelley Copley / University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
The Evolutionary Potential of Promiscuous Enzyme Activities

Lee Cronin / University of Glasgow, UK
The Quest for Self-Programming ‘Evolvable’ Chemistry

Antoine Danchin / AMAbiotics International Ltd, Evry, France
A Universal Class of Innocuous Chasses for Synthetic Biology

David W. Deamer / University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
A New Model for the Origin of Cellular Life: Coupled Phases and Combinatorial Selection in Hydrothermal Pools

Donald Hilvert / ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Nearer to Nature: Design and Optimization of Artificial Enzymes

Wilhelm T.S. Huck / Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Synthesis of Out-of-equilibrium Oscillating Chemical Reaction Networks: Towards Living materials

Terry Kee / University of Leeds, UK
Towards Convergent and Cooperative Abiogenic Processes

Stephen Mann / University of Bristol, UK
Towards Synthetic Cellularity via Protocell Design and Construction

Sheref S. Mansy / University of Trento
The Potential Role of Metallopeptides in the Origins of Life

William F. Martin / Heinrich-Heine Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany
Hydrothermal Vents and the Origin of Life (Real Microbes)

Sijbren Otto / University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Systems Chemistry: Towards Darwinian Evolution of Self-Replicating Molecules

Robert Pascal / Université Montpellier-2, France
Why and How Kinetics, Thermodynamics, and Chemistry can Combine to Trigger the Logic of Biological Evolution

Matthew W. Powner / University College London, UK
Chemical Selection of Proteogenic Amino Acid and Canonical Nucleotides

Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo / Universidad del Pais Vasco, San Sebastian, Spain
Major Prebiotic Transitions as Stages of Protocellular Development

George Whitesides / Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Early Processes: What Might Have Come Before the Beginning?

Dave A. Winkler / CSIRO Manufacturing, Clayton, Australia
Biomimetic Molecular Design Tools that Learn, Evolve, and Adapt