Events

Eng. Seminar - Joseph Moran - On the Origins of Biological Metabolism

Joseph Moran and the emergence of metabolism

Date: Wednesday 24 June 2020 15:00 - 16:30

Location: Online: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eng-seminar-on-the-origins-of-biol...

Engineering Seminar Series is happy to host Joseph Moran from the University of Strasbourg, who will talk to us about his research in uncovering the mystery at the origin of life.

Abstract: Biological metabolism exhibits signs that it may have started as a self-organized chemical system. The need for continuity between prebiotic chemistry and biochemistry mean that the two probably still resemble each other in key ways. Our aim is to infer the conditions that produced the initial self-organized system. To do this, we are recreating subsets of the metabolic network in the lab under purely chemical conditions. Once a number of key sub-systems are in hand, we hope to be able to pinpoint the non-equilibrium environment that gave life its start. This talk will discuss our progress towards this goal.

Bio: Joseph Moran is a Professor at the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires of the University of Strasbourg & CNRS. After completing his Ph.D. studies in organic chemistry (Prof. André Beauchemin, Ottawa), he took postdoctoral positions to learn chemical biology (Prof. John Pezacki, NRC Canada) and transition metal catalysis (Prof. Michael Krische, Texas). He moved to France as an assistant professor in 2012 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. His research interests include prebiotic systems chemistry, supramolecular catalysis, and the use of vibrational strong coupling in organic chemistry. He is a recipient of the ERC Starting Grant (2015), the Jean Normant prize of the French Chemical Society (2018) and was named to C&EN’s Talented 12 (2018).