Thermodynamics 2.0 | 2022 Program: Sessions and Abstracts

Mon - Wed, July 18 - July 20 , 2022 , Boone, North Carolina

Session T0C: Invited Talk: Addy Pross

12:15-12:45. Wednesday July 20, 2022

Chair: Gregory S. Yablonsky

Title: Dynamic Kinetic Stability: Toward the Physicalization of Biology

Presenter:

  • Addy Pross

(Department of Chemistry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel)

Bio-sketch

Addy Pross is a Professor of Chemistry (Emeritus) at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel, whose research interests have focused on general problems of chemical reactivity, in particular the Origin of Life problem. His recent book “What is Life: How Chemistry Becomes Biology?”, 2nd Ed., Oxford University Press, 2016, part of the Oxford Landmark Science series, has been translated into close to a dozen languages. Professor Pross has authored over 100 research papers, has been an invited speaker to some 70 conferences and universities world-wide, and has held Visiting Professor appointments at leading universities in the US, Europe, Asia, and Australasia.

Author(s):

  • Addy Pross

(Department of Chemistry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel)

images

Abstract:T0C.142

Abstract

Despite the dramatic advances over recent decades in uncovering the physico-chemical basis for life processes, the conceptual gap separating the physical and biological sciences continues to perplex. Life phenomena remain awkwardly incompatible with an accepted physical perspective on material behavior. In this talk I will describe the recent discovery of a previously unrecognized kinetic dimension in chemical space, one offering new insights into the life phenomenon seemingly unavailable through traditional thermodynamic considerations. The kinetic dimension encompasses stable, energy-fueled, non-equilibrium, dynamic chemical systems expressing a distinct stability kind termed dynamic kinetic stability.  Recognition of such a stability kind offers physical insights into life’s highly organized non-equilibrium structures and opens up possible strategies for the synthesis of simple proto-life systems. The conceptual gap that has long divided the physical and biological sciences may (hopefully) be beginning to narrow.

Keywords: dynamic kinetic stability, chemistry, life, physical science, biological science

References:

[1] Pascal R & Pross A. Chemistry’s kinetic dimension and the physical basis for life. J. Syst. Chem. 7, 1 (2019).

[2] Pross A & Pascal R. How and why kinetics, thermodynamics, and chemistry induce the logic of biological evolution. Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 13, 665–674 (2017).