William Martin on the origin of life
Oeiras, 21.01.10
Next Thursday, January 28, the Frontier Leaders seminar series will host another ERC Advanced Grant recipient: William Martin from the University of Düsseldorf (Germany) will discuss "Hydrothermal vents and the origin of life".
The European Research Council Advanced Grants allow exceptional established research leaders in any field of science, engineering and scholarship to pursue frontier research of their choice. William Martin was awarded with the European Research Council Advanced Grant (€2M) in 2008 for his project "A biological network approach to the study of biochemical origins, early cellular evolution, and gene distributions across genomes".
William Martin comes from Texas and moved to Germany in 1980. He majored in Botany at the University of Hannover, graduated in 1985 and finished his Ph.D. thesis in 1988 at the Max-Planck-Institute in Cologne under Heinz Saedler on molecular genetics and plant evolution. In 1989 he moved to Rüdiger Cerff's group at the Institute of Genetics of the University of Braunschweig to work on molecular evolution and endosymbiosis. In 1999 he received an appointment as professor of Botany at the University of Düsseldorf. Dr. Martin serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards and has published >170 original papers that have attracted over 6000 citations. His main scientific interests are endosymbiosis, early evolution, and the evolution of genes and genomes.
The seminar series Fontiers Leaders of Today for the Scientists of Tomorrow is specially designed to integrate the ITQB PhD Program and brings to Portugal eight renowned researchers in biology and chemistry, selected among the recipients of ERC Advanced Grants.
This seminar series is supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Frontiers Leaders of Today for the Scientists of Tomorrow
ITQB Auditorium
28 Jan, 11h00
William Martin, Dusselforf University, DE
Hydrothermal vents and the origin of life
NEXT 24 Feb: Gunnar von Heijne, Stockholm University, SE
How membrane proteins are inserted into the endoplasmic reticulum
9 March: Bruno Lemaitre, École Politechnique Federale de Lausanne, CH
The gut immune response of Drosophila
19 March: Christopher Schofield, University of Oxford, UK
The Chemistry of Oxygen Sensing in Humans
30 April: Philipe Sansonetti, Institut Pasteur, FR
7 October: Paul Christou, Universitat Leida, ES
Third generation transgenic plants and the politics of plant biotechnology
9 Nov: Ari Helenius, ETH, CH
A systems approach to virus entry
11 Jan: Thomas Welton, Imperial College, UK
In Search of an Ionic Liquid Effect