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Bioenergetics and the major evolutionary transitions

14 - 15 November 2012 09:00 - 17:00

 

Satellite meeting organised by Dr Nick Lane, Professor John Allen, Professor John Raven FRS and Professor William Martin

Event details

Cellular bioenergetics produce shifts in genome architecture and vice versa. Some of the major transitions of evolution depend on this interaction. This meeting will focus on the interactions between genomes and energy flow, from the origin of cells in hydrothermal vents to photosynthesis, and from mitochondrial genes in the eukaryotic cell to the evolution of multicellular organisms.

Biographies of the organisers and speakers are available below. Recorded audio of the presentations will be available on this page after the event.

Click here to download the programme

Enquiries: Contact the events team.

Organisers

  • Dr Nick Lane, University College London, UK

    Dr Nick Lane is a biochemist and writer. He holds the first Provost's Venture Research Fellowship in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London. His research is on the role of bioenergetics in the origin of life and the major transitions of evolution. Dr Lane was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and is leading the UCL Research Frontiers Origins of Life programme. He is the author of three acclaimed books on evolutionary biochemistry, the latest of which, Life Ascending, won the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books.

  • Professor John Allen, Queen Mary University London

    "John F. Allen is Professor of Biochemistry at Queen Mary, University of London. A native of Newport, Monmouthshire, Allen obtained his BSc and PhD (with D. O. Hall) from King's College, University of London. Allen pursued postdoctoral research in Oxford, in the laboratory of F. R. Whatley FRS; then in Warwick, with J. Bennett, in the Chloroplast Laboratory of R. J. Ellis FRS, also working in Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with C. J. Arntzen. As a lecturer in Leeds University, Allen did sabbatical work the laboratory of K. Sauer, University of California, Berkeley. Allen became a professor at the universities of Oslo, Norway (1990-92), and Lund, Sweden (1992-2005). At Queen Mary from 2005, Allen held a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award, and Fellowship of the Linnean Society of London from 2009. Allen's contributions include demonstration of superoxide in photosynthetic oxygen reduction, redox control of protein phosphorylation, regulation of light-harvesting structure and function, and transcription of chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA. Allen’s CoRR Hypothesis for the evolution and function of cytoplasmic genomes led to the discovery of Chloroplast Sensor Kinase and makes further predictions concerning the dialogue between bioenergetics and gene expression."

  • Professor John Raven FRS, Univesity of Dundee

    "John Raven graduated from Cambidge University with a BA in Botany in 1963 and a PhD in Botany in 1967. After Fellowships at St John's College and a temporary lectureship in Camridge he moved to the University of Dundee in 1971 and became a Professor there in 1980. He has published widely on bioenergetics, biological transport processes, biogeochemistry, ecophysiogy, palaeoecology, astrobiology and evolution with over 350 peer-reviewed publications. He was elected FRSE in 1981 and FRS in 1990 and has been involved in organising three previous Royal Society Discussion Meetings."

  • Professor William Martin, Heinrich Heine University, Germany

    Bill Martin received his undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Hannover in 1985 and completed his PhD in Genetics with Heinz Saedler at the Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research in Cologne in 1988. He pursued postdoctoral research with Rüdiger Cerff at the University of Braunschweig on the origins and evolution of eukaryotes and their bioenergetic organelles (chloroplasts and mitochondria). In 1999 he accepted the position of full professor at the University of Düsseldorf. His biochemical work focusses on energy metabolism in eukaryotic anaerobes and the role of hydrogenosomes — hydrogen-producing forms of mitochondria — therein. His genome evolutionary work focusses on non-treelike evolutionary processes such as gene transfers from organelles to the nucleus (endosymbiotic gene transfer) and lateral gene transfer among prokaryotes, the study of which incorporates networks to recover the vertical and the horizontal components of genome evolution.