With this award, the Chemistry Division is supporting David Lynn of Emory University, E. Virginia (Ginger) Armbrust of the University of Washington and Cynthia Burrows of the University of Utah to conduct a workshop, co-funded by NASA, and entitled, "Empirical Approaches to Alternative Chemistries of Life". The workshop in to take place in Alexandria, VA over the period of April 1-4, 2012, with roughly 30-35 invited participants from the fields of chemistry, virology, biology and geochemistry, many of whom will never have interacted with one another before. The goal is to achieve cross-pollination toward the end of asking bold questions about how and where one would look in search of new molecules of life, new mechanisms for self-organization or new chemical bases of life. The organizers propose to explore a number of themes that range from the molecular level to the ecosystem/systems biology level. The workshop participants will be chosen to represent both a diverse range of scientific disciplines, and diverse demographics, including an international component. The findings of this workshop will be disseminated in the form of a report for the community. It is expected that the workshop and its report will stimulate new types of experiments, including interdisciplinary ventures not previously undertaken, in search of new chemistries relevant to the emergence and sustenance of living systems.
Call to Action By defining the genome of the Earth’s oceans and the chemical composition of exoplanets within habitable zones around other stars, we step ever closer to defining life and the chemistry that underlies its range. Could life on Earth represent the single solution, radiating from a point across space and time, or are there different forms, alternative chemistries that emerge in very different molecular environments? Any discovery of alternative chemistries that operate orthogonal to and independent of our current central biochemical dogma will change the understanding of our place in the Universe. This Workshop was a first critical step, bringing together the diverse constituencies to not only define alternative chemistries, but also to focus on where and how to look. We reviewed the realms of top down causality and bottom-up emergence to explore the interface where life emerges, the "golden spike-like" joining that defines that critical point where living materials exist. The collective results are profound, both in terms of scientific necessity and our future survival. We share here the implications and the actions that emerged both to inspire and expand collaborations across scientific and international research communities and to mobilize our collective wisdom in shaping and guiding our biochemical future.
