WELCOME

WELCOME to the

VBC-PhD-Symposium 2010

ORIGIN OF LIFE

November 18-19, 2010

As far back as collective memory and recorded history goes, it is clear that man has questioned the origins of not only his or her own life, but that of life on earth.  With each passing generation, the logic and the wisdom of the time has been applied to tackle this question. Beginning with tribal legends, to the advent of the scientific method in our modern times, humanity has come a long way into investigating the origins of life. Many pieces of the puzzle have been put into place. However, the missing pieces remain hotly debated as centuries before.

This year’s VBC PhD Symposium entitled “Origin of Life” will investigate this timeless question by looking at a variety of different perspectives including: the chemical and biological origins of life, evolution and species diversification, and the extinction of species. In other words, we ask ourselves what came first: the chicken or the egg? In this way, we hope to open cross disciplinarily discussions on the complete circle of life and explore how these different areas are intertwined with one another. We hope to showcase some of the new developments and the current scientific understanding of the origins of life in this vast and vibrant field.  This year, the VBC symposium is fortunate to host some renowned scientists from around the world in these areas to open the discussions on these topics with the conference attendants.

The organizing committee would like to cordially invite all interested students and scientists to register and participate in this year’s symposium.