#25. How Did Life Originate on Earth?

Loren Williams is a biophysicist, biochemist, astrobiologist, and professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. His research passions include the structural basis for macromolecular reactions, from the role of nucleic acids as targets of chemotherapeutics to the ancestral bio­chemistry of the ribosome during the origin of life. He is currently director of the NASA-funded Center for the Origin of Life (COOL) at Georgia Tech and a Co-Lead of the Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environment Con­sortium. In 2021, he was elected Fellow of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life. Since 2008, Williams' research group has been focusing on the ribosome across the tree of life, constructing models of ancestral ribo­somes by combining biophysical chemistry, molecular biology, and bioinformatics.

(Recorded 4/19/22.)