Jurados

He was born in London in 1952 and studied between the US and Canada, until receiving a doctorate from Cornell University in New York. He obtained his doctorate when he was only 19 years old.

Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Professor of Genetics at Harvard University (USA), he is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and an Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received the Nobel Prize along with molecular biology experts Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider. The award recognized the discovery of the role of telomeres and the enzyme telomerase in preventing the degradation of chromosomes in cell division, a discovery that marked a before and after in the study of cell aging.

Research SzostakIt focuses on fundamental questions, such as the origin and early evolution of life, as well as the synthesis in the laboratory of simple systems that imitate cells. He has been a pioneer in the study of the experimental evolution of RNAs with catalytic activity, in search of an RNA that can copy itself. Furthermore, he has made very notable contributions in the development of protocellular systems (based on those types of abiotic structures that preceded cells) in the test tube through a systems chemistry strategy in which the heterogeneity of the components plays a leading role. central.

Currently, he dedicates all his efforts to trying to recreate the primitive cell capable of reproducing and launching the process of evolution described by Charles Darwin. The origin of life.