Harvard Out To Uncover Life's Origin

A group of Harvard researchers is preparing to use some of mankind’s newest technology to answer its oldest question: how did life begin?

The project, known as the “Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative,” will bring together researchers from across several scientific disciplines to determine how on Earth—and, perhaps, elsewhere in the universe—a muddle of chemicals gave rise to the first life forms.

“We’re trying to figure out what are possible pathways from simple chemistry to the molecules of life that we know, hence could this have happened on other planets of other stars, are we alone in the universe,” said Professor of Astronomy Dimitar D. Sasselov, who is heading the project.

The researchers working on the initiative do not envision a single pathway to life, but rather believe that there may exist several different pathways. With their project, they aim to find at least one of those pathways.

Sasselov said that the initiative will benefit from collaboration across a range of disciplines. Researchers from five scientific areas, including earth and planetary sciences, organismic and evolutionary biology, molecular biology, chemistry, and astronomy, will work on the project.

“The pathways to life is one of the largest questions of humankind so it will probably take the whole of science to find out the answer,” he said. “I don’t think this will take effort only within chemistry or only within biology to understand what happened in the universe to lead from chemistry to biology.”

The initiative comes in midst of a violent debate over the origins of life in America. President George W. Bush has said recently that the theory of “intelligent design”—which states that there is a divine, guiding force behind adaptation—should be discussed in schools, sparking renewed discussion over whether God or evolution is responsible for life.

Sasselov said that the researchers do not see themselves participating in that debate—“we started this [initiative] before the debate was even there,” he said—although the initiative’s findings are likely to find their way into the controversy. Knoll added that many of the researchers feel that debate should be the stuff of philosophers and religious groups, not of scientists.

The initiative was given a preliminary go-ahead by Harvard in April, when the Allston Science Task Force included it among a handful of projects shortlisted to receive space in the new campus across the Charles.

Sasselov and his team have received a small sum of seed money to develop a more comprehensive proposal for space in Allston, and while the initiative will likely receive some space in Cambridge within the next few years, the ultimate goal is to move into a center of its own in Allston.

Although the project will be based out of Harvard, the researchers hope to receive grants from nonprofit and government organizations. Already NASA will be contributing to the project—Knoll is one of the nation’s most prominent experts on Mars and will contribute the findings he gains as one of a handful of researchers who take turns driving NASA’s Opportunity Rover over the Red Planet.

But Knoll said that while outside funds often come with restrictions on the grant may be used, Harvard’s participation will give researchers freedom “to do things that are maybe more creative.”

Sasselov said that the initiative’s goals are not only scientific but also academic—he hopes that the prospective center for the study of the origins of life will provide more opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students to study and research in the field.

This year, as part of that goal and in tandem with the launch of the initiative, Sasselov and Knoll with co-teach a Core course on the topic, Science A-54, “Life as a Planetary Phenomenon.” And Knoll added that public education—informing the average American, not just Harvard students—on the origins of life, is also a goal of the initiative.

Sasselov said that student interest in the origins of life was one of the driving factors behind the project. “There are a lot of students...who have come to ask us if we could teach or have a degree or research based on possible pathways to life on other cosmic planets and around other stars,” he said. “We want to provide these kinds of courses.”

Sasselov said that, from both a scientific and educational perspective, now is an optimal time to confront the question of how life formed. New technology, especially in molecular biology, chemistry, and astronomy, has allowed researchers to study the topic in ways previously impossible.

“Why didn’t people do it 10 years ago, five years ago? The reason why has to do with the ability technically to do thing that were not possible before,” Sasselov said. “They all involve new technology and state of the art methodology.”

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.