Conveners
ORIGINS of Life Lab Highlight and Seed Money Talks
- Dieter Braun (LMU)
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Corinna Kufner (Harvard University)23/11/2021, 16:15
On the surface of the early Earth and Earth-like exoplanets ultraviolet (UV) light acts as an important energy source. Particularly, UV light of different wavelength ranges can trigger a variety of photochemical reactions relevant to the molecular origins of life. However, the penetration depth of UV light into natural waters on early Earth and Earth-like exoplanets has remained an open...
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Christof Mast (LMU)23/11/2021, 16:45
Absorption of UV photons by prebiotic chemicals is considered to be an important factor in driving important prebiotic reactions. In this seed project, we are evaluating the effect of UV radiation (260nm) on the sequence distribution of DNA and RNA oligomer pools. For this purpose, we have developed a high-throughput sequencing-based technique to simultaneously determine photodimer damage...
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Oliver Trapp23/11/2021, 16:55
All evolutionary biological processes lead to a change in heritable traits over successive generations. The responsible genetic information encoded in DNA is altered, selected, and inherited by mutation of the base sequence. While this is well known at the biological level, an evolutionary change at the molecular level of small organic molecules is unknown but represents an important...
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Zoe Todd (U. of Washington, Seattle)23/11/2021, 17:05
Prebiotic lake environments containing ferrocyanide could have fostered origins of life chemistry on the early Earth. Ferrocyanide, coupled with sulfite or sulfide, can participate in an ultraviolet (UV)-driven photoredox cycle to generate solvated electrons, which can reduce cyanide to form all four major building blocks of life: sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, and lipid precursors....
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Oliver Trapp
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30. Seed Money 2021: Elucidating the role of early life in the evolution of organic carbon compoundsDheeraj Kanaparthi (MPIB), Oliver Trapp (LMU), Petra Schwille (MPIB)