October 17, 2025
The Origins Federation Conference united scientists across disciplines in the search for how life emerged and evolved
When and where did life on Earth begin? What ingredients does the recipe for life require? Is there life out there beyond the stars, and if so, did it arise in the same way? Or are we alone in the universe?
On September 8, 2025, over 100 scientists from around the world gathered at the University of Chicago for five days to share their discoveries as they search for answers to these questions.
The third annual Origins Federation Conference brought together prominent researchers in biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, planetary sciences, and astronomy to share and discuss research results through talks and extended poster sessions, identify new opportunities for inquiry, and foster interdisciplinary collaborations.
“No one discipline can solve this mystery,” said Fred Ciesla, professor and department chair of UChicago’s Department of the Geophysical Sciences and one of the conference’s organizers. “This gathering offers the opportunity to report developments to your own community while also communicating their significance to other fields.”
Co-organized by UChicago University Professor of Chemistry Jack Szostak, the conference serves as the annual meeting of the Origins Federation, a global consortium of four leading research institutions dedicated to advancing our understanding of the emergence and early evolution of life and its place in the cosmos.
Established in 2023, the Federation comprises the University of Chicago’s Center for the Origins of Life, Harvard’s Origins of Life Initiative, ETH Zürich’s Centre for Origin & Prevalence of Life, and the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe. The first meeting was hosted by Harvard, followed by Cambridge. Next year, the conference will be hosted by ETH Zürich.
Discovery discussions
The core of the conference was a series of presentations covering cutting-edge research across a wide breadth of topics, delivered by experts from institutions around the world.
Each day began with a 101 talk during which a chemist or geologist, for instance, explained foundational concepts in a way that a physicist or an astronomer could understand. These introductory talks covered topics including ribozyme evolution and prebiotic chemistry.
The rest were more specialized, focused on recent studies. UChicago researchers delivered talks including “Probing Formation via Exoplanet Atmospheric Composition” by astrophysicist Diana Powell and “Structural and Functional Characterization of a Self-Acylating RNA Motif” by chemist Joe Piccirilli. Physicist Martin Falk gave a talk entitled “Replication of Collectively Coded Information.”
Despite diverse content, presentations were at times complementary. One afternoon’s lineup featured back-to-back talks on exoplanet research, including “Prospects for Detecting Biosignatures on Exoplanets” by Cambridge astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan, whose study outlining the detection of potential biosignatures on a habitable planet 120 light-years from Earth made international news last spring.
The following talk, “Challenges for Detecting Biosignatures on Exoplanets” by UChicago astrophysicist Jacob Bean presented an analysis of data from multiple observations of the planet that yielded a different conclusion.
The conference also featured extended poster sessions, with presenters giving flash talks. Among the presenters were students, who had the opportunity to share their research while engaging with senior scientists from various fields, gaining valuable experience in multidisciplinary study.
The agenda also had ample time scheduled for networking between talks, over meals, and during a visit to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. The nature of the conference was a conversation, both figuratively and literally, laying the groundwork for spontaneous collaborations and surprises.
New frontiers
The range of topics offered participants abundant opportunity to hear about the latest breakthroughs within their own scientific subfield while also learning about work in areas far from their own.
UChicago physicist Arvind Murugan’s research is already particularly multidisciplinary. He works at the intersection of physics, biology, computation, and materials science to understand the hallmarks of life. One key element of his work is understanding how matter self-replicates.
“The matter-to-life question—under what conditions does non-living stuff start making copies of itself—is perhaps the most interesting question in physics,” said Murugan. Many of the questions explored at the conference require physics thinking, he said.
While many of the talks were closely relevant to Murugan’s work, he particularly enjoyed the early Earth and planet formation talks, which were far from his field of study. “My mind was blown by how much these scientists can rigorously establish about the far past that I didn’t think was knowable,” he said. “How did continental plates move around on earth 3.5 billion years ago? Answering such questions with rigor requires such a creative combination of ideas from a vast number of areas of science.”
Bean was surprised to learn that the evidence for plate tectonics on Earth has been pushed back to even earlier times. “It is extraordinary what can be learned from microscopic mineral samples!”
A key driver of Bean’s research on extrasolar planets is the hunt for habitable environments and life beyond Earth. “The ultimate hope is to provide another Earth and another form of life to study to help us understand our origins and place in the universe,” said Bean. He was particularly interested in the talks that focused on the planetary conditions that gave rise to life on Earth, such as the composition of Earth’s atmosphere when life arose, the chemistry that was occurring, and the external drivers of that chemistry.
These discussions opened the door to collaboration. “In the very first talk, my local colleagues and I had an ‘ah ha’ moment when we realized a common theme between the early Earth and some of the planets we study,” he said. “That connection looks very promising for future research.”
UChicago astrophysicist Leslie Rogers also specializes in exoplanets. Her area of research helps us understand the range of planetary environments that could provide the potential settings for the origin of life. “The search for biosignatures in exoplanet atmospheres may also eventually help constrain how commonly or infrequently life originates throughout the galaxy,” said Rogers.
She was intrigued by UChicago chemist Daniel Duzdevich’s presentation about lab experiments showing that lipid vesicle structures can survive in concentrated sulfuric acid solutions, similar in composition to clouds on Venus. “I was also fascinated by the work presented by [ETH Zürich planetary scientist] Cara Magnabosco, where her lab provoked localized mini earthquakes to explore how underground microbial communities are affected by the crushing of rock.”
The origin of life is perhaps the most interdisciplinary question in all of science. “It requires advanced tools developed by computer scientists and engineers, and it sparks questions that get at the heart of who we are as a species and a society,” said Bean. The scientific community searching for the answers possesses a wealth of expertise in a variety of disciplines along with a deep sense of curiosity and enthusiasm for collaboration. “The Origins Federation Conference was a perfect venue for cross fertilization.”
