Skip to main content

Jack Szostak wants to understand the chemical and physical processes that facilitated the origin and early evolution of life on Earth. To explore these processes, Szostak and his team are trying to build a model of a primitive cell, or protocell, that has the minimum capabilities to self-replicate and evolve. Through their work, they hope to gain insight into some of the universal properties of modern cells, and how modern cells arose from their simpler ancestors. They are also on the lookout for chemical or physical phenomena that might have practical utility in biomedical research.