How did life begin on Earth? How will we manufacture it in the laboratory? These are the questions that begin with Un planeta creatiu, by biochemistry and molecular biology researcher Juli Peretó.

• Date: February 2, 2023
• Time: 19:00
• Place: Aula Magna. La Nau Cultural Center - Universitat de València

The book is number 5 of the Urània collection, directed by Vicent J. Martínez. The edition also has illustrations by Manuel Boix and an unpublished poem by Carlos Briones.

In the text, Peretó exposes the main scientific explanations about the natural emergence and artificial manufacture of life, as well as the deployment of biological complexity over almost four billion years. The author presents not only current ideas and their historical and philosophical background, but also provides us with anecdotes and experiences from more than thirty years of studying a scientific question as fundamental as that of the origin of terrestrial life.

On February 2, a debate will be held around Peretó's book in the Aula Magna of the La Nau Cultural Center, of the University of Valencia, with the presence of Vicent J. Martínez, director of the collection Urània and member of the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia, of Susanna Manrubia, CSIC research professor at the National Center for Biotechnology, and of the author himself.

The author

Juli Peretó belongs to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Valencia and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. Co-founder of Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence SL and member of the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), he was secretary and vice president of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, a society that named him Fellow in 2014. He collaborates with the UCC+i of the UV and tries to ensure that future biotechnologists know about metabolism. The FEBS Biochemical Education Committee invited him to share his innovative experience of teaching biochemistry with an evolutionary flavor.

Source: PCUV