In the fall of 2008, timed in anticipation of the upcoming 150th anniversary of Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species in 2009, Emory University hosted a two-day public symposium, the Evolution Revolution.  Held in the style of a town hall meeting, the Evolution Revolution brought together scientists with the general public to explore the future of evolution as a theory and a process and the potential of recent research to transform our lives.  Panel discussions, workshops for teachers, and arts performances all helped to make the event a specatular success with thousands of people in attendance and thousands more listening in online.

Evolution Revolution: A Public Symposium, October 2008 [Emory Magazine Article]

How Can We Optimize Our Evolutionary Inheritance?

• Panel Introduction - Melvin J. Konner [↓]

• Talk - Michelle Lampl [↓]

• Introduction I - Melvin J. Konner [↓]

• Talk - Leslie Real [↓]

• Introduction II - Melvin J. Konner [↓]

• Talk - Carol Worthman [↓] 

• Q&A Session [↓] 

What is the greatest influence on human health - nature or nurture? New research demonstrates that this is a dated dichotomy obscuring the mutual interaction between genes and environment. Genes, we are learning, are dynamically related in their operation to cues from the environment. How does new research on this exchange between genes and environments suggest ways to optimize our health individually as well as across generations and populations?

Michelle Lampl probes the dynamic of genes and environment as it relates to children's growth and their lifelong and inter-generational health.

Leslie Real looks at how evolutionary principles illuminate the rise of new diseases - such as HIV, Ebola, and SARs - and the drug resistance of more familiar diseases - such as TB and malaria. Encouragingly, these same principles provide a guide to protecting our global health.

Carol Worthman explains the nature-nurture matrix and how it helps us to understand which human variations are normal and which may be the result of societal disparities.

Can We Engineer New Life?

• Introduction - Robert R. Nerem [↓]

• Talk - Nicholas Hud [↓]

• Talk - David Lynn [↓]

• Talk - Ichiro Matsumura [↓]

• Q&A Session [↓]

We speak of the "miracle of life" in appreciation of its wondrous nature and also because its origin remains a mystery. Considering that mystery, Darwin suggested in a letter in 1871 that life may have arisen "in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &C. present." Today, researchers are making progress toward understanding that "&C" - the chemical origins and processes that led to the emergence of life. The application of this research has enormous potential to enhance existing life forms and engineer new ones. Examples would include biofactories that produce new drugs, create energy sources, and consume pollution, as well as the fabrication of tissues and organs that may transform healthcare and even our experience of being human.

Nicholas Hud and David Lynn are heading a National Science Foundation-sponsored effort to advance an understanding of how life began and provide insight into a variety of ways that life could emerge and evolve in different environments.

Ichiro Matsumura studies the evolutionary capacities of proteins, a fundamental component of all living cells, and the possibilities of directing their evolution at the most basic biochemical level.