Making life from the primordial soup

Professor Warren Tate

This looks like a great lecture coming up next week. At least for residents of Rotorua, Palmerston North and Christchurch.

It’s the 2011 Rutherford Lecture:

How to Make Life from the Primordial Soup. Why RNA is the key ingredient to human life.

And the speaker is 2010 Rutherford Medallist Professor Warren Tate.

The details of venues and times are:

ROTORUA

Time/Date: 7.30pm/ Tuesday 13 September
Location: Concert Chamber, Rotorua Convention Centre, 1170 Fenton Street, Rotorua

PALMERSTON NORTH

Time/Date: 7.30pm/ Wednesday 14 September
Location: Speirs Centre, Palmerston North Boys High School, Featherston Street, Palmerston North

CHRISTCHURCH

Time/Date: 6.30pm/ Thursday 15 September
Location: C1 Central Lecture Theatre, Arts Road, University of Canterbury.

Park in the Clyde Road car Park, off Arts Road, which is off Clyde Road.  Once parked, follow Arts Road to the centre of the campus – the central Lecture Block is at the corner of Arts Road and Forestry Road.

http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/theuni/maps/

I got a reminder from the Royal Society today so it looks like there are still seats.

For further information go to 2011 Rutherford Lecture- How to Make Life from the Primordial Soup.

Here’s a teaser from the advertising:

One of the biggest questions in life is how did we get here? How did rock and steam become our world, full of life and diversity?

The science community thought they had the answer with the achievement of the Human Genome Project just after the turn of the new millennium, however ten years on it seems that it may not be DNA which is the star but its sibling RNA.

In this lecture, 2010 Rutherford Medallist Professor Warren Tate will speculate on RNA’s role 3‐4 billion years ago in the origin of protein synthesis and the genetic code, and how understanding the history of this fascinating molecule might lead us into the future with the development of therapies for Alzheimer’s Disease, HIV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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