What Is Life?

Media

Logistics

  • Wednesday, November 13 | 7:00 – 9:00 pm
  • Offering Format: Public Event, Lecture
  • Recommended for grade 12 and adults
  • Cahners Theater
  • Admission: $20; buy tickets

    • Associated Persons

    With George M. Church, PhD, Gary Ruvkun, PhD, and Jack Szostak, PhD; see bios below.

Description

Three seminal figures in biological and biomedical sciences discuss life as we know it, life as it may have begun, and life as it may evolve in the future. From basic elements of human biology to nuances in aging and illness and on to life forms we’ve never known before, venture into an investigation of what we know, what we may find out, and what we have yet to imagine. Cocktail reception follows this Reno Family Foundation Symposium.

Tickets on sale beginning Thursday, August 22 (Tuesday, August 20 for Museum members).

Funding provided by the Reno Family Foundation Fund.

Photo of protocell created in Szostak lab.

Photo © Janet Iwasa

Additional Information

George M. Church, PhD is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, Director of the NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Science, Synthetic Biology Platform Lead at Hansjorg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and recipient of the 2011 Franklin Bower Award for Achievement in Science for his contributions to genomic science, including the development of DNA sequencing technologies, and his efforts in personal genomics and synthetic biology.

Gary Ruvkun, PhD, Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and recipient of the 2008 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2012 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, with Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts, for the discovery of microRNAs.

Jack Szostak, PhD is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine, the 2008 Dr. H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics, and the 2006 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for his discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.

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