Invited Speakers
- Prof. Alexander Meshik
- (Physics Department and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences)
- Prof. Alexander Meshik is a nuclear chemist, worked for isotope geochronology of uranium oxides. He discovered a new process affecting the isotopic composition of fission xenon (chemical fractionation of fission products) led to understanding of operational mode of the Oklo natural nuclear reactors. He will make a presentation entitled "Operational conditions of Precambrian Nuclear Reactor" in the symposium.
- Prof. Charley Lineweaver
- (Australian National University)
- He is one of the top astronomers and an advocate of the Galactic Habitable Zone. He has a strong interest in the exploration of habitable planets, and has been investigating when and how a habitable planet is born after the creation of the universe. He has also been researching necessary conditions to have life to evolve into human being from the viewpoint of environmental condition and its sustainability.
- Prof. Mark Ditzler
- (Exobiology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center)
- Dr. Mark Ditzler is a Research Scientist at Exobiology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center. He received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from University of Michigan and has a strong background in molecular dynamics and biochemistry. Mark is currently involved in various research projects related to the origin and evolution of life with an emphasis on RNA world theories.
- Prof. Mary Voytek
- (Astrobiology, ELSI of Tokyo Institute of Technology)
- Dr. Voytek has managed the NASA Astrobiology Program for the last ten years and is currently the Executive Director of the Earth and Life Science Institute. Her primary scientific interests are biogeochemistry and aquatic microbial ecology; more particularly, environmental controls on microbial transformations of nutrients, xenobiotics, and metals in freshwater and marine systems. She has worked in several extreme environments, including Antarctica, hypersaline lakes, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and terrestrial deep-subsurface sites.
- Prof. Mikhail S. Kritskiy
- (A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry, Russian Academy of Science)
- Prof. Mikhail S. Kritskiy has worked in photobiochemistry of coenzymes and photoregulation of microbial metabolism and proposed excellent ideas on the origin of the coenzymes and nucleic acids. He will give a talk entitled "On the Evolutionary Roots of Actualistic Photobiochemistry" in the symposium.
- Prof. Mitsuhiro Itaya
- (Keio University)
- Prof. Mitsuhiro Itaya, he is a pioneer of large-scale genome design and synthesis. He has developed methods for de novo designing large-size DNA (bacterial whole genomes), and has challenged to activate biological systems on the synthetic genomes that are subject to various analyses for integrative understanding of "what life is".
- Prof. William Martin
- (Institute of Molecular Evolution, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)
- Dr. William Martin is a Professor at Institute of Molecular Evolution, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf. After undergraduate at Texas A&M, he moved to University of Hannover (Germany). He received his Ph.D. from Max-Planck-Institut fürZücht ungsforschung, Cologne. After postdoctoral work at Institute for Genetics, Technische Universität Braunschweig, he became a full professor at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf. His science started out in the field of endosymbiosis and gene transfer in evolution. With an interest in endosymbiosis, he became very interested in the origin of life. His first research on this topic was “The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote” that appeared in Nature in 1998. He is a distinguished contributor to the field of molecular evolution.