Life Resurrected: Traveling Backwards in Evolutionary Time

Come hear Harvard researcher and astrobiologist, Betul Kacar, talk about the origins of life on earth and the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.

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Only one history of life has been recorded on our planet, but can we reconstruct the contributing metabolic factors of this biological past? Is life the result of a fluke or an accident? What is the likelihood of life occurring elsewhere in the Universe?

To answer these questions, she combines computational and experimental tools and travels backwards in evolutionary time in the laboratory. She follows the evolutionary history of our DNA to unravel how the harsh conditions of our ancient planet shaped life to be the way it is today, and explores the varying roles of chance and necessity in life's evolution.

Betul Kacar is an astrobiologist who is interested in understanding life’s origins, evolution and possible existence elsewhere in the Universe. She earned her PhD in Biomolecular Chemistry from Emory University. She conducted her postdoctoral research as a NASA Astrobiology Institute Postdoctoral Fellow.

She is currently a Research Associate at Harvard University Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a co-Principal Investigator with the ELSI Origins of Life Institute of Tokyo and the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

Her work on reconstructing ancient genes has been widely featured in BBC News, NOVA PBS, Popular Science and New Scientist. In 2015, she received the John Templeton Foundation Big Questions in Life Sciences Research Grant. In 2016, she was named 'Way Cool Scientist' by the Science Club for Girls in Cambridge, MA.