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Nick Lane (University College London, UK), Why membrane bioenergetics structures cell evolution from the origin of life to agency

Name: Nick Lane (University College London, UK), Why membrane bioenergetics structures cell evolution from the origin of life to agency
Start: 2025-04-01T17:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-04-01T18:30:00+02:00
Location: Bordeaux Biologie Sante, Salle Nord (1st floor)

1 April | 17 h 00 min - 18 h 30 min

Hybrid talk, in-person in Bordeaux; Zoom link available upon request.

Nick Lane (PhD, FRSB, FLS) is Director, Centre for Life’s Origins and Evolution and Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London.

Abstract:

Life is a surprisingly good guide to its own origins in terms of energy transduction, metabolism and the genetic code. I will give a conceptual overview of our own work on the origin of life in hydrothermal systems, avoiding detailed experimental data. I will outline how an early requirement for membrane bioenergetics to drive CO2 fixation structured later cell evolution, and specifically the singular origin of complex (eukaryotic) life on Earth. Finally I will touch on how these ideas give insights into the physical basis of feelings and their relationship to agency at the level of cells.

Professor Lane’s research is on the way that energy flow has shaped evolution over 4 billion years, using a mixture of theoretical and experimental work to address the origin of life, the evolution of complex cells and downright peculiar behaviour such as sex. He was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and is Co-Director of the UCL Centre for Life’s Origin and Evolution (CLOE). He was awarded the 2009 UCL Provost’s Venture Research Prize, the 2011 BMC Research Award for Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Evolution, the 2015 Biochemical Society Award for his outstanding contribution to molecular life sciences and 2016 Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture, the UK’s premier award for excellence in communicating science.

Nick Lane is the author of five acclaimed books on evolutionary biochemistry, which have sold more than 150,000 copies worldwide, and been translated into 25 languages.