Founded in 2022, the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (COPL) comprises researchers from more than 40 groups across a wide range of disciplines, including biology, chemistry, earth sciences, astrophysics and environmental systems sciences.
Guided by a shared vision, the scientists study the chemical and physical processes that have enabled the emergence of life, as well as the planets and environmental conditions that allow it to prosper and evolve. Under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Didier Queloz, the centre thrives on flexible and synergy-based forms of cross-disciplinary collaboration. A selection of the researchers and their questions:
Cara Magnabosco
What happens when life enters an uninhabited world?
Conducting research on the interaction between living and
non-living systems, the earth
scientist is fascinated most by
life deep underground, i.e.
organisms that ”breathe“ rocks
rather than oxygen.
Loïc Pellissier
How do landscapes change in relation to biodiversity?
One line of research the
ecosystem scientist follows is the complex way in which biosphere, climate and topography have
co-evolved since life began.
Sascha Quanz
Is there life beyond the solar
system?
The astrophysicist leads the international LIFE initiative, which is developing an ambitious
space mission to search for trace
gases of life, such as oxygen
or methane, in the atmospheres
of Earth-like exoplanets.
Roland Riek
Which building blocks enabling the emergence of life came first?
The researcher in the field of physical chemistry assumes that the first chemical world, appearing a few hundred million years after Earth came into being, consisted
of amino acids and self-replicating
small proteins formed from these acids by volcanic gas.
Paolo Sossi
From which minerals, liquids
and gases are other planets
formed?
The experimental planetologist simulates in his lab the conditions in the atmospheres and on the surfaces of planets and what makes up their core.
Tanja Stadler
How does life develop?
Genetic information changes during reproduction, branching out like the boughs of a tree. The biostatistician reconstructs the tree from genetic
sequences and then calculates the
biological processes. The method
works for viruses as well as for ecosystems and different time scales.
Marco Stampanoni
How can we develop novel X-ray based instruments and methods to investigate biological samples non-invasively?
The professorship is part of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at UZH and ETH and is dedicated to developing new methods in connection with
the synchrotron light source at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI.
Derek Vance
How has the Earth's surface
evolved over the course of its
history?
Using isotopic and geochemical tracers to study global cycles, the geochemist investigates sediments and rocks to apply his findings to the Earth’s past.
Julia Vorholt
How does the complexity of life evolve?
The microbiologist is interested in bacteria and archaea, the groups of organisms that emerged back in the first half of our Earth's history. She studies their metabolism and how their interactions contribute to the complexity of life.
Helma Wennemers
How did metabolism in the
prebiotic world emerge?
In her efforts to learn more about the role that peptides play in
the emergence of life, the organic chemist develops catalytically active peptides and supramolecular materials.
