Harold Morowitz, Santa Fe Institute and George Mason University Shelley Copley, University of Colorado at Boulder Nigel Goldenfeld, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Eric Smith, Santa Fe Institute Carl Woese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Arizona State University George Cody, Carnegie Institute Kenneth DeJong, George Mason University Zaida Luthey-Schulten, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Vijaya Sarathy Srinivasan, George Mason University James Trefil, George Mason University
The emergence of life from abiotic geochemistry remains one of the central problems of biology, all the more salient with the discovery of extra-solar planets, the success of remote landing vehicles on Mars and Titan capable of detecting evidence for extra-terrestrial life, and the exploration of extreme or remote terrestrial environments. Despite the remoteness of the complex phenomena that constituted the various origins of the key aspects of terrestrial life, particularly the metabolic and replication mechanisms, numerous relics survive in the core pathways and features of modern organisms. This interdisciplinary project will synthesize these separate but convergent clues to early life from primordial geochemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, thermodynamics, evolutionary biology and the dynamics of genomes, to provide a coherent account of the evolution of metabolism and the development of the modern genetic code. This research will place strong constraints on the likely environment, manner and core metabolism of early life on Earth. The broader impacts of this interdisciplinary approach will be a working template for efforts to predict the nature of extra-terrestrial life and its detection from metabolic activity or other environmental effects. This project will be disseminated to a broad audience through a writer-in-residence program, trade publications, museum exhibits, an active web site, and K-12 outreach. Emanating from the research activities are projects involving highly-talented under-represented minority students from the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute of Arizona State University, the NSF REU programs at the participating institutions, and the SFI Complex Systems Summer Schools. Results of this work will be integrated into core curricula and seminars emphasizing the centrality of multidisciplinary, biocomplexity-oriented collaboration in modern research, thus combining curriculum with opportunities for participation. The project will include a symposium intended to summarize its outcome to K-12 educators, and provide an overview of modern biogenesis and its broader implications for astrobiology.
