Dr. Gregory Robinson of the University of Georgia will be presenting a seminar entitled Carbene-Stabilization of Highly Reactive Main Group Molecules.
Faculty Host: Dr. David Atwood
Dr. Andrew Pohorille from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will be presenting a seminar entitled The Origins of Protein Functions in Cells.
Facutly Host: Dr. Yinan Wei
Shoulder to Shoulder Global's May 2012 brigade to Ecuador allowed students, faculty and staff from the UK College of Health Sciences, UK College of Arts and Sciences, Transylvania University as well as members of the community to attend to 704 patients at the Centro Médico and partnering communities.
Dr. Hyman Hartman of MIT will be presenting a seminar entitled The Origin and Evolution of Photosynthesis.
Abstract:
The origin and evolution of photosynthesis is considered to be the key to the origin of life. This eliminates the need for a soup as the synthesis of the bioorganics are to come from the fixation of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. No soup then no RNA world or Protein world. Cyanobacteria have been formed by the horizontal transfer of green sulfur bacterial photoreaction center genes by means of a plasmid into a purple photosynthetic bacterium.
The fixation of carbon dioxide is considered to have evolved from a reductive dicarboxylic acid cycle (Chloroflexus) which was then followed by a reductive tricarboxylic acid cycle (Chlorobium) and finally by the reductive pentose phosphate cycle (Calvin cycle).
The origin of life is considered to have occurred in a hot spring on the outgassing early earth. The first organisms were self-replicating iron-rich clays which fixed carbon dioxide into oxalic and other dicarboxylic acids. This system of replicating clays and their metabolic phenotype then evolved into the sulfide rich region of the hotspring acquiring the ability to fix nitrogen. Finally phosphate was incorporated into the evolving systemwhich allowed the synthesis of nucleotides and phospholipids.
If biosynthesis recapitulates biopoesis, then the synthesis of amino acids preceded the synthesis of the purine and pyrimidine bases. Furthermore the polymerization of the amino acid thioesters into polypeptides preceded the directed polymerization of amino acid esters by polynucleotides. Thus the origin and evolution of the genetic code is a late development and records the takeover of the clay by RNA.
Faculty Host: Dr. Marcelo Guzman
Dr. Jinjun Liu of the University of Louisville will be presenting a seminar entitled The Methoxy Radical: An Incredible Playground for Hi-resolution Molecular Spectroscopists.
Faculty Host: Dr. Dennis Clouthier
Dr. Dana Spence of Michigan State University will be presenting a seminar entitled Advancing our Understanding of Blood and its Functions with Biotechnology.
For more information about Dr. Spence and his research, click here.
Faculty Host: Dr. Susan Odom
Dr Dana Baum of St Louis University will be presenting a seminar entitled Using Nucleic Acids as Catalysts and Sensors.
For more information about Dr. Baum and her research, click here.
Faculty Host: Dr. Stephen Testa
Oleksandr Korneta has been a part of the Center for Advanced Materials since its inception, but his journey to UK’s Physics Department began more than 10 years ago in his native Ukraine.
