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Published On October 23, 2014
BASIC RESEARCH
On the Origin of Life
Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak discusses how research on chromosomes led to current investigations into Earth's first organisms.
What forces came together to kickstart living organisms along the path of evolution? Perhaps no scientific riddle holds as much general philosophical interest.
On October 14, 2014, Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, discussed this question in light of his career in research. He discussed his groundbreaking work on telomeres—caps on chromosomes that keep their ends from fraying— that earned him the Nobel Prize in 2009, and current explorations of how those findings inform his investigations into how life originated on Earth.
“After working on this laboratory evolution for quite a few years, I started to get more and more curious as to how evolution got started all by itself on the early Earth,” says Szostak. “There are definitely common features of all forms of biological life that are puzzling and unexplained and I think it would be very satisfying to have some deeper understanding of why we are the way we are.”
To hear more from this fascinating lecture, click here.
From Mass General
Our Response to a Pandemic Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss how Massachusetts General Hospital is tackling COVID-19.
The Changing Landscape of Primary Care Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss a shortage of primary care physicians and how to address the problem.
A Safe and Controversial Place Physician Mark Eisenberg discusses the furor over (and the desperate need for) safer injection sites.
Next-Generation Vaccines Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the revolution of rational vaccine design.
Climate Change Meets an Aging Population The most common victims of extreme weather events are older people. New research looks into how the health system fails them, and how it can be fixed.
A Revolution in Cancer Treatment Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the promise of CAR T cell therapy for solid tumors.
Singular Exceptions Should primary care physicians be trained to spot unusual, medically important cases?
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