Posted inSynthetic Biology
The DNA of Alien Life
Synthetic biology can inform the search for alien life by exploring alternatives to normal terrestrial biochemistry. Here's how...
About Steven A. Benner
Steven has developed the fields of paleogenetics, evolutionary bioinformatics, astrobiology and synthetic biology, working at Harvard, the ETH Zurich, and the University of Florida before establishing the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (Alachua) and Firebird Biomolecular Sciences LLC.. His synthetic biology has had over $1.3 billion in medical applications, and is currently used in coronavirus detection. His laboratory has also resurrected 3 billion year old proteins in Jurassic Park experiments, and helped define how life may have arisen on Earth and Mars. Outside of science, Steven bicycled across the North American continent, 6083 kilometers in all.
He earned a Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (Yale), and a Ph.D. in Chemistry (Harvard)