January 27-28, 2020
This event is available online at: https://bluejeans.com/102566855

A Celebration of NASA Astrobiology: NAICAN-7 Grand Finale
Reliving the Past: Experimental Evolution of Major Transitions in the History of Life

MONDAYJANUARY 27 IBB Suddath Seminar Room

08h15– 08h50: Continental Breakfast, Suddath Room, IBB

08h50 – 09h00: Frank Rosenzweig, PI. Georgia Tech: Welcoming Remarks and Overview

09h00 – 09h20: Vaughn Cooper, co-I. University of Pittsburgh: The timescale and limits of evolutionary parallelism *Work of Caroline Turner (NPP Fellow), new faculty at Univ Loyola-Chicago

09h20 – 09h40: Kimberly Chen, postdoc. Georgia Tech: Evolution of multicellularity in the volvocine algae

09h40 – 10h00: Kennda Lynch, DDF Fellow. Georgia Tech; now Staff Scientist Lunar Planetary Institute: S3 (Subsurface, Subaqueous, and Salty): Looking for life in all the right places

10h00 – 10h20: Peter Conlin, Georgia Tech (NPP Fellow): Stabilizing the evolutionary transition to multicellularity against reversion

10h25 – 10h55: COFFEEBREAK

11h00 – 11h20: Shelley Copley, co-I. University of Colorado: Mutations that enable assembly of a novel metabolic pathway from promiscuous enzyme activities (and a surprise)

11h20 – 11h40: Gavin Sherlock, co-I. Stanford University: Pareto fronts constrain initial adaptation in yeast

11h40 – 12h00: Paul Sniegowski, co-I. University of Pennsylvania: Mutational load and the functional fraction of the human genome

12h00 – 13h00: LUNCHANDDISCUSSION

13h00 – 13h20: Will Ratcliff, co-I. Georgia Tech: Getting cool things for “free”: what we’ve learned from our multicellularity LTEE

13h20 – 13h40: McCutcheon Lab: Deanna Bublitz, Research Scientist. University of Montana: Peptidoglycan: one ring to bind them

13h40 – 14h00: Miller Lab: Nikea Ulrich, PhD candidate. University of Montana: Emergence of a generalist: How horizontal gene transfer and gene duplication contribute to niche breadth in Acaryochloris marina

14h00 – 14h20: Ben Galeota-Sprung, recent PhD. University of Pennsylvania: Mutational load in mismatch-repair-deficient yeast

14h20 – 14h50: Eric Smith, co-I. Georgia Tech/Tokyo Tech-ELSI and Anton Petrov, Research faculty. Georgia Tech: The genetic code as a record of interdependent major transitions in biosynthesis and folding by biopolymers

14h50 – 15h20: COFFEEBREAK

15h20 – 15h40: Nick Hud, PI. Center for Chemical Evolution. Georgia Tech: Proto-Biopolymers: Before the Inception

15h40 – 16h00: Loren Williams PI, Center for Origin of Life. Georgia Tech: RNA and protein: At the inception.

16h00 – 16h20: Amanda Stockton PI, PSTAR. Georgia Tech: Searching for life at Earth’s extremes and beyond.

16h20 – 16h30: Frank Rosenzweig, Concluding remarks.

16h30 – 19h00: Happy Hour and ExplOrigins Poster Session (MoSE 1st and 2nd Floor Atrium)

Exploration and Origins Colloquium: GT ExplOrigins

MONDAY January 27 MoSE 1st and 2nd Floor Atrium

17h00 – 19h00: Poster Session

TUESDAY January 28 IBB Suddath Seminar Room

  • Each contributed talk will be scheduled for 20 minutes

8h00 – 8h45: Coffee and Poster Viewing

8h45 – 9h00: Welcome notes

9h00 – 10h00: PLENARY 1: Mariel Borowitz

10h00 – 10h15: COFFEEBREAK

10h20 – 12h00: MORNINGSESSION (5 TALKS)

  • Tyler Roche: Thematic introduction/overview
  • 1. Kynan Hughson: Possible pingo analogs may populate Ceres
  • 2. Micah Schaible: In situ characterization of elemental compositions for small bodies throughout the Solar System
  • 3. Bradley Burcar: The impact of CO2 and cyanide in prebiotic environments on mineral formation and urea-based phosphorylation reactions
  • 4. Kelvin Smith: Mechanistic Investigation of Depsipeptides in the Early Earth through kinetic Monte Carlo framework
  • 5. Petar Panev: Eukaryotic-like ribosomal RNA region in Lokiarchaeota

    12h00 – 13h00 LUNCH: MoSE 1st and 2nd floor atrium

    13h00 – 14h00 PLENARY 2: Chris Carr

    14h00 – 15h00 AFTERNOONSESSION 1 (3 talks)

  • Taylor Plattner: Thematic introduction/overview
  • 1. Nadia Szeinbaum: Synthetic microbial consortia to explore cooperation on early Earth
  • 2. Anthony Burnetti: The dual origins of phototrophy and major evolutionary transitions
  • 3. Devon Cole: Stability of atmospheric oxygen levels and ocean ventilation

    15h05 – 15h15 COFFEEBREAK

    15h15 – 17h00 AFTERNOONSESSION 2 (4 talks)

  • Chase Chivers: Thematic introduction/overview
  • 1. Philip Szot: Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa (VERNE): Mission and system Design
  • 2. Loren Dean Williams: Polymers versus Metabolism
  • 3. Adriana Lozoya Colinas: DNA replication facilitated by a prebiotic solvent
  • 4. Aaron Pital: Semantic mining of chemical origins from non-chemistry disciplines

    17h00 – 19h00 BREAK-OUT/POSTER SESSION