Professor
Molecular • Cellular & Developmental Biology
My interest in origins is two fold. All known life appears to be a variant of a single last common universal ancestor. This evolutionary and genealogical fact constrains and informs all of biology. At the same time, speculations on life’s origins and its ubiquity or uniqueness (who knows which?) in the Universe are examples of the interaction between ideology, intellectual rigor, hype, and self-promotion, and so provide an fertile context within which to study their interactions in society