2022 Origins of Life GRC and GRS: Environments for the Origins of Life and Habitability

This grant will provide partial support for the 2022 Origins of Life (OoL) Gordon Research Conference(GRC)and Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), Galveston, TX, in January 2022. How life emerged on Earth is one of the most fundamental questions that human societies have asked in all cultures and all periods of time. Thus, exploring the answers to this question has fundamental value to human society.

Furthermore, OoL is a tremendously interdisciplinary field and requires expertise, including geochemistry, geophysics, planetary science, space sciences, biochemistry, cell biology, paleontology and organic chemistry, among many other fields. Thus, OoL represents the true spirit of Convergence Science as envisioned by NSF. Hence, the advances in concepts and techniques in OoL could bring huge impacts with a wide range of scientific, technological and society benefits.

For example, the bottom-up assembly of model protocells shares many technological skills and concepts with the field of synthetic cells, that has potential applications in biotechnology, synthetic photosynthesis to control anthropogenic global warming and even bioinspired architectural design. Finally, the unique format of the GRC/GRS has tremendous potential impact on shaping the careers of young scientists, especially graduate students, postdocs, and assistant professors, and this award will support specifically their participation.

The GRC/GRS Chairs/Vice-Chairs have also made a tremendous effort to invite a large number of Invited Speakers and Discussion Leaders from underrepresented groups and early career scientists to encourage participation from these groups among the conference attendees.

This grant will provide partial support for the 2022 Origins of Life (OoL) Gordon Research Conference(GRC) and Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), Galveston, TX, in January 2022. Paradigm-changing discoveries about stellar and planetary evolution, survival of organic molecules and microorganisms under extreme conditions, and geochemical environments on early Earth and other planets are sparking a synergistic dialogue between geoscientists, chemists, and biologists to understand how life might have originated under geochemically plausible environments.

The importance of the geochemical environmental conditions as providing constraints on prebiotic organic chemistry has only recently begun to be acknowledged in this field. The 2022 OOL GRC is entitled “Environments for the Origins of Life and Habitability” to reflect this growing recognition and the 9 sessions focus on how geochemistry may have evolved to biogeochemistry.

The Chair of this GRC is Dr. Nita Sahai and the Vice-Chair is Dr. Laurie Barge.

The GRS Chair and Vice-Chair are, respectively, Dr. Laura Rodriguez and Mr. Tyler Roche.

Sahai and Barge are both geochemists and the specific focus of this GRC is on the plausible geochemical environments that could have served as the cradle for the OoL, thus supporting the transition from geochemistry to biogeochemistry. This distinguishes it from many prior OoL GRCs which have focused primarily on biochemistry and organic chemistry. The GRC is one of the most intellectually stimulating conferences because of its design and format.

Another unique feature of the 2022 OoL GRC is that the question of Epistemology will also be addressed by one Invited Speaker, which is an especially important topic for understanding the OoL or the Origins of the Universe. New ideas that move the field forward often emerge from the informal and formal discussions at the GRC. Thus, the OoL GRC is resonant with the scope of the NSF Ear GG program and NSF’s vision of Convergence Science.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.