The Discovery Series, launched in 2013, brings eminent scientists, thought leaders and innovators from around the world to the Biodesign Institute to share their research expertise.  Discovery Series lectures and interactive discussions which follow exposes our faculty, staff and students to the latest developments in science, technology and medicine, keeping Biodesign researchers abreast of current trends and breakthroughs.  Discovery Series events also provide networking and collaborative research opportunities – please join us!
 
Lectures are open to the community. Seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.
 

Past Speakers

Sustainable Synthesis of Polyester Fiber and Bottles: Bioinspired Synthesis From Glucose or Plasma Refining of Carbon Dioxide/Methane

Lecture by

John Frost, PhD

University Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University

Wednesday, Sept. 19 • 2–3 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

The world produces more than 60 billion kilograms of terephthalic acid for polymerization to polyethylene terephthalate, or polyester PET, which is used in the manufacture of plastic bottles, fibers and a myriad of other consumer products. Sustainable synthesis of terephthalic acid entails the bioinspired design of pathways enabling microbes to synthesize chemicals such as muconic acid, isoprene and acrylic acid from glucose. These intermediates are then converted chemically into terephthalic acid.

John Frost will present a very different strategy that entails plasma refining of methane and carbon dioxide to acetylenemonocarboxylic acid. This intermediate undergoes a catalyzed chemical reaction to form terephthalic acid. PET and its precursor terephthalic acid serve as an intriguing test case for formulation of sustainable syntheses of large-volume chemicals within the context of a world that could have a population of 13 billion people by the year 2100.

 View Video Lecture

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Normalizing transformed cancer cells with rigidity sensing | Super-resolution imaging of Salmonella pathogenesis

Lecture co-presented by

 

Michael Sheetz, PhD

Director, Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore

 

 

 

 

Linda Kenney, PhD

Principal Investigator, Mechanobiology Institute, National University Singapore

 

 

Thursday, Aug. 30, 1:30–2:30 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

The shapes of cells, organs and whole organisms are determined by forces on and from the immediate environment, which is either extracellular matrix or adjacent cells. Sheetz discovered motor proteins and determined how they translate chemical energy into motion. Sheetz and Kenney bring together the latest technologies of engineers and physicists to address big challenges in biology and medicine in an open environment to discover important aspects of the biological systems that underlie disease and regeneration in humans and animals in a new field called “mechanobiology.” This work uses novel techniques in microscopy, which bends the limits of traditional techniques, permitting researchers to peer into cells under low-light conditions without traditional cellular damage caused by bright-light microscopic techniques. These studies reveal processes in living cells never seen before.

Sheetz uses these tools to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in a variety of phenomena from cancer metastasis to brain function by measuring cell forces at the molecular level, which reveal how cells can both generate and respond to external forces. He quantifies the steps involved in cell adhesion and spreading on a matrix-coated surface. Using a variety of cell lines that are missing proteins in various motility pathways, enabling the generation of a detailed model of the process for further studies of how cells differentiate, regenerate tissues or metastasize.

Kenney’s laboratory is working in signal transduction and the regulation of gene expression in prokaryotes. In particular, the two-component regulatory system EnvZ/OmpR that regulates the expression of outer membrane proteins as well as many other genes. Current work is focused on how OmpR activates genes required for systemic infection (located on Salmonella pathogenicity island 2) in Salmonella enterica.

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Exploring Novel Mechanisms of Alzheimer’s Disease Pathogenesis

Lecture by

Robert Vassar, Ph.D.

Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in the elderly. There are currently more than 5 million AD patients in the United States, but this number is expected to grow dramatically as a result of the aging population. Currently, there are no therapies that treat the underlying biological mechanisms of AD. If such disease-modifying treatments are not found, the ensuing AD epidemic will threaten the social and economic welfare of the nation. Central to the development of Alzheimer’s disease-modifying therapies is a deep and comprehensive understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of AD pathogenesis. Robert Vassar will summarize several themes of his lab’s ongoing research, including BACE1 as a therapeutic target for AD, the calcium hypothesis and dystrophic neurite formation, and explorations of the mechanisms of two recently discovered AD-associated genes, UNC5C and ACE1. AD is a complex multifactorial disease, and we must understand the entire AD pathogenic pathway in exquisite detail in order to identify appropriate points of therapeutic intervention and stage of disease to attack. Moreover, combination therapies that target disease pathogenesis at several points will have the highest likelihood of success.

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Taming the Distinctive Bacterial Microbiota of Social Bees

Lecture by

Nancy Moran, Ph.D.

Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin

 

Thursday, Nov. 30, 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Animals are associated with communities of microorganisms that can have a major influence on the evolution and phenotypes of their hosts. The extent to which these microbial lineages coevolve with hosts and with each other is often unclear, as are the kinds of genetic changes that accompany this evolution. Social bees are associated with a set of well-defined and host-restricted bacterial lineages that make up the gut microbiota. Genomic analyses on the bee gut microbiota indicate a long, shared evolutionary history of several distinctive bacterial lineages with their hosts, including honey bees, bumble bees and stingless bees. Experiments show that these communities have effects on host metabolism and resistance to pathogens, and that disruption can result in increased mortality. The bee microbiota system promises insights into and the kinds of genetic changes that have accompanied the evolution of host-associated bacterial communities.

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A Broad and Inclusive Cybersecurity Community

Lecture by

Zachary Staples

Commander, U.S. Navy; Director, Naval Postgraduate School Center for Cyber Warfare

 

Wednesday, April 12, 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

The U.S. Navy’s mission is to win wars, deter aggression and maintain freedom of the seas. During an all-out cyberattack, these defenses must be performed by machines. We will be asked by our country to make good decisions on vast amounts of data that can only be fully analyzed by autonomous systems.
We need to prototype and test such decisions to quickly adapt our way of fighting. Creating and adopting such innovative, diverse and fast practices in cybersecurity will help us reach the creative potential needed to defend our digital shores.

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Protecting the Proteome in Aging and Neurodegenerative Disease

Lecture by

Richard Morimoto, Ph.D.

Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology, Director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research, Northwestern University

Wednesday, March 1, • 10 a.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

A common feature of disease and aging is the accumulation of damaged proteins that accumulate in aggregates and amyloid species. The appearance of this molecular clutter is a consequence of protein metastability and the direct result of failure of the quality-control machinery that leads to the accumulation of these damaged proteins, which over time interferes with cellular function.

 View Video Lecture

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Getting More out of the Sunlight:
Overcoming Constraints on Photosynthetic Energy Conversion Efficiency

Lecture by

Andreas Weber, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Biology, Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Heinrich Heine University

Tuesday, Feb. 28, • 10 a.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Life on earth depends on the conversion of solar energy to chemical energy through the process of photosynthesis. Typical crops convert light energy to biomass with efficiencies of approximately 2 to 3 percent, which is less than half of the theoretically achievable maximum. In his seminar, Andreas Weber will discuss constraints on photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency and synthetic biology approaches to overcome these constraints.

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Regulated Mutation and Evolution and Deep Translational
Discovery of Cancer Gene Functions in Bacteria

Lecture by

Susan Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Ben F. Love Chair in Cancer Research and Professor, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Susan Rosenberg will describe her work with the molecular mechanism of stress-induced mutation in E. coli and the parallels in other organisms, including human cancer; discuss anti-evolvability drugs that could be aimed at targeting mutagenesis and delaying the evolution of cancer progression; and share engineered proteins that trap, label, quantify and map in genome-specific DNA intermediates in genome instability.

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Antibiotic resistance genes in recycled water:
Harmonizing challenges in sustainable water infrastructure and public health

Lecture by

Amy Pruden, Ph.D.

W. Thomas Rice Professor of Engineering, Virginia Tech

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017 • 11 a.m
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Water reuse is a key strategy for water sustainability. To support continued advancement, research into potential health concerns needs to keep pace. In particular, antibiotic resistance is a growing global health concern and water reuse is one potential avenue that could contribute to its spread. Hear Pruden discuss implications of the growing body of research on antibiotic resistance genes in the water cycle and how it can inform best practices in the future direction of water infrastructure to advance sustainability and protect public health.

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Late Onset Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Implicates Microglial Function?

Lecture by

Alison Goate, Ph.D.

Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Center on Alzheimer’s Disease, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017 • 11 a.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Until recently the genetics of late onset Alzheimer’s disease was poorly understood. Apolipoprotein E genotype was the only replicated genetic risk factor. High-throughput technologies such as genomewide association studies and next-generation sequencing approaches are transforming our understanding with more than 30 loci identified in the last few years. The challenge for the field is to translate this knowledge into an improved understanding of the biology of disease.

 View Video Lecture

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Mutation, Drift and the Origin of Subcellular Features

Lecture by

Michael Lynch, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Biology, Indiana University – Bloomington

Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017 • 11 a.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Information on spontaneous mutations, obtained from whole-genome sequencing of mutation-accumulation lines, implies an inverse scaling of the mutation rate (per nucleotide site) with the effective population size of a species. This pattern is thought to arise naturally as natural selection pushes the mutation rate down to a lower limit set by the power of random genetic drift.

 View Video Lecture

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Using Epigenomic Approaches to Identify Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets for Alzheimer’s Disease

Lecture by

Li-Huei Tsai, Ph.D.

Director, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; Picower Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Senior Associate Member, Broad Institute Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Hear about how Li-Huei Tsai and her team use cutting-edge transcriptomic and epigenomic approaches to study Alzheimer’s disease mouse models and human brain samples. These analyses reveal dysregulation of novel pathways that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention.

 View Video Lecture

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The Complex Science of Cybersecurity

Lecture by

Stephanie Forrest, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

See how ideas from biological defense systems can be applied to solve cybersecurity problems. Learn how tools of complexity science can be used to understand today's technological networks and their linkages to human behavior, social norms and economic incentives, which can help us address global scale cybersecurity problems.
 

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Written in Blood: Nanopore-enabled Peptidomic Analysis and its Application in Disease Detection

Lecture by

Tony Hu, Ph.D.

Core Director, Peptidomics Nanoengineering Core and Assistant Professor of Nanomedicine, Institute for Academic Medicine, Houston Methodist Research Institute

Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 • 1:30 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Hear about developing and validating the integrated nanotechnique-based strategies to perform marker discovery and molecular diagnostics from peripheral blood and to provide a translatable solution for personalized medicine.

 View Video Lecture

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Resolvin’ Tumor Growth with Resolvins

Lecture by

Dipak Panigrahy, M.D.

Assistant Professor, Pathology, Harvard Medical School; Instructor in Surgery, Vascular Biology Program, Boston Children’s Hospital; Member of Neuro-Oncology, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center

 

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Panigrahy’s studies show that enhancing endogenous clearance of tumor cell debris represents a new biological target to complement current cancer therapy.

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Colorectal Cancer: Familial Risk, Screening and Prevention

Lecture by

N. Jewel Samadder, M.D.

Assistant Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine

Thursday, October 8, 2015 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Learn about colon cancer syndromes, their genetic basis and clinical management and the unique resources available in Utah to study familial clustering of cancer and health care resource utilization.

 View Video Lecture

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Epigenetic Mechanisms in Memory Formation

Lecture by

J. David Sweatt, Ph.D.

Evelyn F. McKnight Chair, Department of Neurobiology and Director of the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham

 

Monday, June 8, 2015 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Conservation of epigenetic mechanisms for information storage represents a unifying model in biology, with epigenetic mechanisms being utilized for cellular memory at levels from behavioral memory to development to cellular differentiation.

 

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Reconstructing the First Few Human Tumor Cell Divisions (Big Bang Tumorigenesis)

Lecture by

Darryl Shibata, M.D.

Professor of Pathology, Keck School of Medicine of USC

 

Tuesday, May 12, 2015 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Darryl Shibata is interested in cancer evolution with a focus on using genomic data to infer human somatic cell ancestral trees.

 View Video Lecture

 

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Atherosclerosis, Cancer and Wound Healing: A Systems Biology Connection

Lecture by

Alexandra Lucas, M.D.

Professor of Medicine, Ethel Smith Chair in Vasculitis Research, and Director of Vascular Research Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Florida

 

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Alexandra Lucas’s research has examined the roles of serine protease inhibitors (serpins) as well as the glyocalyx and chemokines in transplant vasculopathy. She is a practicing interventional cardiologist in addition to running an active basic research lab in vascular inflammatory research.
 

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Super-resolution Fluorescence
Microscopy

Lecture by

Jörg Enderlein, Ph.D.

Professor of Biophysics and Complex Systems, Third Institute of Physics at the Georg-August University Göttingen

 

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015 • 1 p.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Although Jörg Enderlein has a wide scope of interests, his research explores single molecule spectroscopy and imaging, from fundamental aspects to biophysical applications. Come to hear about the latest super-resolution microscopy techniques from someone who uses them.

 View Video Lecture

 

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Decoding Omics Data:
Disease Pathway and Drug Target Discovery

Lecture by

John Quackenbush, PhD

Director, Center for Cancer Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Professor, Biostatistics and Computational Biology, and Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Harvard School of Public Health

 

Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015 • 9:30 a.m.
ASU Biodesign Institute, Auditorium B105
727 E. Tyler St., Tempe, AZ 85287

Dr. John Quackenbush provides broad-based bioinformatics support to the local research community using a collaborative consulting model. His research is focused on developing new methods for integrative genomic data analysis and inference of gene networks as well as understanding the role that variation plays in the defining phenotype.

 View Video Lecture
 

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Animal Microbiomes and the Origin of Species

Lecture by

Seth R. Bordenstein, PhD

Associate Professor of Biological Sciences and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University

 

 

Seth Bordenstein is a biologist who probes the rules of symbiosis and evolution, and
their inseparable connections. Key questions guiding his science include

• What is the role of the microbiome in the origin of species?
• How do viruses subsist in obligate intracellular bacteria?
• What interactions shape maternal microbial transmission?

Bordenstein’s research is inspired by the Carl Sagan quote that "Life looks for life.” He is the founding director of the international citizen science program Discover the Microbes Within! The Wolbachia Project.

 View Video Lecture

 

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The HPV-associated Cancer Epidemic
and Our Path Forward

Lecture by

Erich Sturgis, MD

Professor, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Epidemiology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

 

 

Erich Sturgis is the program director of the MD Anderson Oropharynx Program, an eight-year clinical and translational research effort supported by a $10-million gift by Charles and Daneen Stiefel to the MD Anderson Head and Neck Program. He is also the administrative leader of the MD Anderson Pilot Moon Shot for HPV-associated Malignancies. His research interests include HPV and molecular epidemiology of carcinomas of the head and neck region, while his clinical focus is sarcomas of the head and neck region as well as thyroid cancer.

 View Video Lecture

 

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Crossing Barriers in Alzheimer’s
Drug Development 

Lecture by

Ryan Watts, PhD

Director and Senior Scientist, Department of Neuroscience, Genentech

 

 

Ryan Watts leads 10 Genentech laboratories focused on developing therapies for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, ALS, pain and other neurological disorders. His research on the blood-brain barrier focuses on the ability of large molecules to transverse it. This effort has led to a new Alzheimer’s therapy and a pipeline of large molecule drugs focused on diseases affecting the central nervous system.

 

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Precision Medicine for the Critically Ill
is Feasible and Necessary

Lecture by

Joe “Skip” Garcia, MD

Senior Vice President, Health Services; Interim Dean, College of Medicine; Endowed Professor of Medicine at University of Arizona

 

Skip Garcia is internationally recognized for his genetic-based research on lung disease and for development of novel therapies for critically ill patients with acute inflammatory lung disease.

A key member of the University of Arizona’s senior executive team, Garcia provides academic leadership for the Arizona Health Sciences Center colleges: the UA College of Medicine – Tucson, the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix, the UA College of Pharmacy, the UA College of Nursing and the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. He also has direct leadership oversight of the UA Cancer Center.

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Quantifying Biomolecular Interactions Using Nanopores: Not Seeing and Believing

Lecture by

Meni Wanunu, PhD

Assistant Professor, Departments of Physics and Chemistry/Chemical Biology. Northeastern University/p>

 

 

Meni Wanunu researches subtle changes in the chemical structure of biomolecules. These changes, called mutations, are sufficient to cause disease by producing a malfunctioning protein. Many of the ways miniscule chemical changes affect biomolecular function are still unknown.

To address these questions, the Wanunu Lab is developing novel techniques that probe how small molecular changes affect the global properties of macromolecules and biomolecules. Using various tools enabled by nanotechnology, the team investigates biomolecular structure and dynamics at their corresponding size scale.

 

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Glucocorticoid Receptor: 
Regulatory Selectivity, Logic and Allostery

Lecture by

Keith Yamamoto, PhD

Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California-San Francisco, Executive Vice Dean of the School of Medicine, and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology

 

 

Keith Yamamoto's research is focused on signaling and transcriptional regulation by intracellular receptors, which mediate the actions of several classes of essential hormones and cellular signals. He uses both mechanistic and systems approaches to pursue these problems in pure molecules, cells and whole organisms.

 View Video Lecture
 

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Design a Life for Yourself:
One Little Step at a Time

Lecture by

Story Musgrave, PhD

Landscape architect, businessman and former astronaut

 

 

Story Musgrave was an NASA astronaut for more than 30 years and flew on six spaceflights. He performed the first shuttle spacewalk on Challenger's first flight, was a pilot on an astronomy mission, conducted two classified Department of Defense missions, was the lead spacewalker on the Hubble Telescope repair mission, and on his last flight, he operated an electronic chip manufacturing satellite on Columbia.

 Click to View Video Lecture
 

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Gut Microbes and Their Role
in Obesity and Malnutrition

Lecture by

Rob Knight, PhD

Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Colorado Boulder

 

 

Rob Knight's research is focused on understanding biological evolution at scales ranging from individual molecules to whole ecosystems. He uses a combination of techniques drawn from fields ranging from computer science to molecular biology to understand the evolution, structure and function of the human microbiome (the microbes that inhabit each of our bodies) and, at a more fundamental level, the evolution of biochemical functions in random-sequence pools of RNA molecules.