Origins of Life Systems Chemistry
Event Details
- Type
- Special Seminar Series
- Speaker(s)
-
John D. Sutherland, Ph.D., group leader, Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology
- Speaker bio(s)
-
Dr. Sutherland studies chemistry associated with the origin of life, and evolution. In this lecture he will discuss recent advances in systems chemistry syntheses of the informational, catalytic and compartment–forming molecules thought necessary for the emergence of life. Dr. Sutherland's lab has previously demonstrated the constitutional self-assembly of pyrimidine ribonucleotides from mixtures of simple building blocks, and is now exploring similar "systems chemistry" approaches to the purine ribonucleotides, as well as ways of assembling RNA from these ribonucleotides with regiocontrol of the internucleotide phosphodiester linkage.
Dr. Sutherland studied chemistry at the University of Oxford, earning his B.A. in 1984, followed by work as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University. He then received his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1988, where his thesis was on the genetic engineering of penicillin biosynthesis. Dr. Sutherland did postdoctoral work at Oxford from 1987 to 1990, followed by a position as a university lecturer in organic chemistry. He was a professor of biological chemistry at Manchester University from 1998 to 2010, when he joined the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge as a group leader. In 2011 Dr. Sutherland was given the Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize and in 2009 he was honored with the Max Tishler Prize Lectureship at Harvard University. - Open to
- Public
- Host
- James Darnell
- Reception
- Refreshments, 11:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., Lower Level Greenberg Building (CRC)
- Contact
- Jill Benz
- Phone
- (212) 327-7244
- Sponsor
-
Jill Benz
(212) 327-7244
benzj@rockefeller.edu