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Limited financial support is available on a case-by-case basis. Please contact origins@mcmaster.ca for inquiries.

The newly formed Origins Institute at McMaster University is organizing an interdisciplinary conference and workshop over a three-week period in Spring 2005. We now call for abstracts for contributed talks and posters and for registration at the meeting.

New observations of exolsolar planets, search for life in solar system, and advances in genomics and biodiversity make astrobiology one of the most exciting and important emergent topics in modern science. Our topic areas can be grouped under two themes: Planetary Science and Evolutionary Biology. Talks on these two themes will be interwoven during the conference week, with an aim of maximizing the degree of communication between different disciplines.

Planetary Theme

• Star formation
  
• Planet formation
  
• Observations of exosolar planets
  
• Search for life elsewhere - Mars, Europa ...
  
• Organic molecules in space and delivery of organics to Earth
  
• Geochemistry - energy sources for life

• The tree of life - molecular phylogenetics
• The earliest organisms - origin, evolution, metabolism, fossil evidence...
• Extremophiles
• Cellular evolution - the origin and evolution of eukaryotic cells and organelles
• Origin and evolution of multicellular life-forms
• Evolutionary theory - complexity, autocatalysis, replicators...

See you in May at McMaster!

Workshop Notes
Members of the workshop will receive office space in the Bourns Building, where they will have access to printers, etc. We will ask for some participants to act as leaders and organizers for each workshop morning. These informal morning seminars will be held in the James Stewart Centre for Mathematics. Afternoons will be free for work, informal discussion, and collaboration in our OI space in the Bourns building.

For any queries regarding the conference and workshop, please contact origins@mcmaster.ca

Obtain a PDF copy of the official conference poster by clicking here.