Institut für Molekulare Evolution

Ferredoxin reduction by hydrogen with iron functions as an evolutionary precursor of flavin-based electron bifurcation

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 121:e2318969121 (2024)

doi: 10.1073/pnas.2318969121

Press release HHU (English)

Pressemitteilung HHU (Deutsch)

Overview of attention

Cryptic diversity of cellulose-degrading gut bacteria in industrialized humans

Science 383:eadj9223 (2024)

doi: 10.1126/science.adj9223

Press release HHU (English)

Pressemitteilung HHU (Deutsch)

Overview of attention

William Martin speaks about the origin of life

Evolutionsbiologe Professor Martin erklärt, wie das Leben entstanden ist

William Martin receives the 2023 Kimura Motoo Award by The Motoo Kimura Trust Foundation for the Promotion of Evolutionary Biology:

For the outstanding works on “early evolution of eukaryotic organisms”

Alexander MacLeod successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"On the phylogenetic distribution of plastid developmental components in the chloroplastida".

Exhibition in the University Library:

Der Ursprung des Lebens /The Origin of Life

Zweisprachige Ausstellung/Bilingual exhibition

Deutsch/English

Verlängert/Extended: Aug 27, 2023

Falk Nagies successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"Patterns and causes of gene evolution over long evolutionary distances in prokaryotes ".

Exhibition in the botanical garden: Grün, Steine, Erde – Unsere Welt im Wandel

Website for the exhibition

Exhibition in the University Library:

Der Ursprung des Lebens /The Origin of Life

Zweisprachige Ausstellung/Bilingual exhibition

Deutsch/English

May 10 – July 20, 2023

William Martin speaks about the origin and early evolution of life

The ancestral mitotic state: Closed orthomitosis with intranuclear spindles in the syncytial last eukaryotic common ancestor

Genome Biology and Evolution evad016 (2023)

doi: 10.1093/gbe/evad016

Sven Oswald and Daniel Finger interviewed William Martin about the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) on rbb Radio Eins, a radio station broadcast by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) in Berlin and Brandenburg, in the  program "Zwei auf Eins":

LUCA

Andrey do Nascimento Vieira successfully finished his doctorate with the thesis entitled

"The role of nitrogen in the onset of metabolism".

Commentary on new findings in PNAS by Colman et al. about acetogen genomes recovered from serpentinizing hydrothermal vents

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (2022)

doi: 10.1073/pnas.2216017119

Bing Song successfully finished her doctorate with the thesis entitled

"On the origin and distribution of prokaryotic cellulases and metazoan oxygen sensing pathway".

Realistic gene transfer to gene duplication ratios identify different roots in the bacterial phylogeny using a tree reconciliation method 

Life 12:995 (2022)

doi: 10.3390/life12070995

Origins as evolution of catalysts

Bunsen-Magazin (2022)

Cover-Story

The greening ashore

Trends in Plant Science (2022)

doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2022.05.005

HHU report: In German | In English

Jessica Wimmer successfully finished her doctorate with the thesis entitled

"Energetik und Stoffwechsel des letzten gemeinsamen Urvorfahren".

Dr. Martina Preiner receives Düsseldorfer Förderpreis für Wissenschaften 2021

Ancestral state reconstructions trace mitochondria but not phagocytosis to the last eukaryotic common ancestor

Genome Biology and Evolution (2022)

doi: 10.1093/gbe/evac079

Bill Martin speaks about his research:

Wie startete das Leben?

In German and English

Bill Martin speaks about how science works, reveals how he chooses a research question and boosts his creativity:

Bill Martin on paying attention

Rheinische Post, a major German regional daily newspaper, published an article about Bill Martin and his research on the origin of life:

Wie das Leben auf der Erde begann