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Title: Planet Earth: A Scientific Journey
Date: May 9-10, 2019
Venue: Aula Magna, Stockholm University, Sweden

The symposium was dedicated to a subject of crucial importance to all, the planet that we live on. The program looked at the planet from its very beginnings, consider the origin of life and evolution in its various forms.

It also investigated physical earth, offering a comprehensive assessment of the planet, its current inhabitants and the biodiversity that sustains these. We considered what science might hold for the planet’s future, including examples of how science is already positioned to enhance and help sustain our world.

The outstanding roster of speakers offered a broad range of disciplines and experience, together providing an especially exciting and synergistic compilation of knowledge. In keeping with the Molecular Frontiers mission, the program seeked to educate, inspire and share the promise of discovery, to all those who participated. In addition to scientists and the general public, some 480 high school students were in the audience.

Lectures, in chronological order

Opening Addresses |

Prof. Astrid Söderbergh Widding, President Stockholm University
Prof Dan Larhammar, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Prof Karin Markides, Chair of the Molecular Frontiers Foundation
Prof Bengt Nordén, Hon Chair Molecular Frontiers Foundation
Dr Lorie Karnath, Molecular Frontiers Foundation, Molecular Frontiers Journal

The Early Earth and the Origins of Cellular Life |

Jack Szostak: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

Why is life the way it is? |

Nick Lane: Biochemist and author. Professor of evolutionary biochemistry at University College London

Our place in nature |

Donald Johanson, paleoanthropologist. Virginia M. Ullman Chair in Human Origins, Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Founding Director, Institute of Human Origins. Discoverer of the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia

Ageing Earth |

Sir Christopher Dobson, FRS, John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology, Chemistry Department, University of Cambridge. Prof Dobson has specialized in the molecular mechanisms, such as protein misfolding and aggregation, behind Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases

Climate change, where the world is heading and how we can stop making things worse |

Joanna Haigh, FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College London, England, co-director of the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

Natural capital, resilience and biosphere stewardship |

Carl Folke, The Gunnerus Prize 2017, science director, co-founder and in the leadership of the Stockholm Resilience Center. He is also Director of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Announcement of the Molecular Frontiers Journal Awards for Student Solutions for Future Planet Earth, with World Scientific, Singapore

The fabric of life and us |

Sandra Diaz, Professor of Community and Ecosystems Ecology, Cordoba National University, Argentina. Winner of the 2019 Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters Gunnerus Award

Enzymes by Evolution |

Frances Arnold, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018, Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology

Harvesting water from desert air: Chemistry designs and viable solutions to vexing societal problems |

Omar Yaghi, James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Prof Yaghi is known for the development of “Reticular Chemistry” concerned with linking molecular building blocks into large predetermined structures with catalytic or other interesting functions

The Art of Building Small |

Ben Feringa, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016, a synthetic organic chemist, specializing in molecular nanotechnology and homogenous catalysis. Professor of Molecular Sciences at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Photophysics and future energy |

Josef Michl, Chemist, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, and Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States

Harnessing science; towards the ends of the earth-at the edge of Space | (Video not available)

Raphael Domjon, eco-explorer, Switzerland Initiator, president and expedition leader of “PlanetSolar” the first solar-powered around-the-world journey. Initiator and pilot of SolarStratos, a solar expedition to the edge of space