Metal Ions and the Route to Life

1. THE ROLE OF METAL IONS IN THE EMERGENCE OF LIFE; A CALL FOR A CHANGE
IN PARADIGM

2. METAL ION CATALYSIS IN ABIOTIC AND BIOTIC PHASES OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF LIVING ORGANISMS

3. METALS AND LIFE; AND INTRODUCTION

4. TRACE METALS AS REDOX COFACTORS AND THEIR ROLE IN CONTROLLING
MICROBIAL DIVERSITY AND EVOLUTION

5. ELECTRON TRANSFER SYMPHONY: UNVEILING THE ENIGMATIC ROLE OF
INORGANIC IRON OXIDE AND SULFIDE NANOPARTICLES AS INORGANIC ENZYMES IN EARLY EARTH ENVIRONMENTS

6. APPLICATION OF ELECTRON PARAMAGNETIC RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPY FOR
STUDIES OF PREBIOTIC METALS AND COMPLEXES

7. UNIQUE SEMICONDUCTING PROPERTIES OF LAYERED Mn AND Fe OXIDE MINERALS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON BIOGEOCHEMICAL PROCESSES

8. Fe-OXYHYDROXIDE “GREEN RUST” (PROTO)METABOLIZED CO2 AND CH4 PRIOR TO
LIFE’S EMERGENCE
9. FOUGERITE: FREE ENERGY CONVERTER FOR LIFE’S CONCEPTION

Biography

Wolfgang Nitschke obtained his Diploma in Physics and his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Regensburg (Germany). He then worked as a post-doctoral fellow (on grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the CEA and EMBO) with A. W. (Bill) Rutherford, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (Saclay, France) and with Pierre Joliot, Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique (Paris/France), followed by a position as Assistant Professor at the Albert-Ludwigs-University’s Institut für Biologie (Freiburg/Germany). In 1995, he obtained a permanent position at the CNRS in the laboratory Bioenergetics and Protein Engineering (Marseille/France) where he founded and headed the research group “Evolution of Bioenergetics”. This group investigates the bioenergetic processes of phylogenetically diverse microorganisms with the aim of elucidating evolutionary pathways from early to extant life and of discerning common, conserved patterns informing on the bioenergetic processes likely to have operated in the earliest forms of life on our planet. Over the last 5 years, the group has extended its research activities towards characterizing mineral-based processes potentially representing abiotic precursors of crucial reaction schemes in living systems.

Simon Duval is a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Marseille, France, since 2018, where he is part of a team focused on the evolution of bioenergetics. He earned his PhD from Aix-Marseille University, where he studied the redox properties and evolution of molybdenum enzymes, in particular arsenite oxidase. Following his PhD, Simon pursued several postdoctoral projects, mostly investigating electron transfer in metalloproteins. Notably, he spent two years at Utah State University (Logan, USA) with Professor Lance Seefeldt, where he explored the properties of Fe-nitrogenase using spectroscopic and biochemical methods.