Media

Below is some past work from the Engelhart lab that has been featured in scientific and popular media.

Emergent ribozyme behaviors in oxychlorine brines indicate a unique niche for molecular evolution on Mars Nature Communications (2024)

Close-up photograph of red-orange desiccated soil with hexagonal cracking patterns and mineral granules, resembling evaporite deposits analogous to Martian surface conditions

Featured in:

Beyond the Blueprint (UMN CBS) (2024)

Nucleic acid electron transfer and halogenation chemistry on Earth, Mars, and Elsewhere (NoRCEL UK) (2024)

Aaron Engelhart - The RNA World on Mars (Polish Astrobiological Society) (2023)

The origin of life | Aaron Engelhart | Reason with science | Life on Mars | Astrobiology | NASA (2022)

Origins of Life: The Search for Life On Mars | Aaron Engelhart (Complexity Explorer) (2022)

Petri Dish: A New Era for Vaccines?

ChiTownBio Plays Kerbal Space Program (w/ Dr. Aaron Engelhart) (2021)

TEDxBeaconStreet: “Life on Mars: Past, Present, Future?” (2019)

Breakthrough Discuss: “Getting to Mars and Surviving Upon Arrival” (2019)

A simple physical mechanism enables homeostasis in primitive cells. (Nature Chemistry 2016)

Primitive cell homeostasis diagram: vesicle growth dilutes inhibitory oligonucleotides and activates an encapsulated ribozyme (Engelhart, Adamala, Szostak, Nature Chemistry 2016)

Featured in:

Functional RNAs exhibit tolerance for non-heritable 2′–5′ versus 3′–5′ backbone heterogeneity (Nature Chemistry 2013)

Graphical abstract: RNA backbone chemical structures with 3′-5′ and 2′-5′ linkages (left) polymerize non-enzymatically into functional RNAs including a hammerhead ribozyme and FMN aptamer (right) (Engelhart et al., Nature Chemistry 2013)

Featured in:

Intercalation as a means to suppress cyclization and promote polymerization of base-pairing oligonucleotides in a prebiotic world (PNAS 2010)

Schematic showing intercalation-mediated suppression of DNA cyclization and promotion of linear polymerization (graphical abstract, Horowitz et al., PNAS 2010)

Featured in:

Metal ion interactions with G-Quadruplex structures and Sequence-Specific DNA-Metal Ion Interactions (Nucleic Acid-Metal Ion Interactions, RSC Publishing 2009)

Cover of RSC Biomolecular Sciences book ‘Nucleic Acid-Metal Ion Interactions’ edited by Nicholas V. Hud, showing a 3D molecular rendering of a metal ion (gold sphere) coordinated within a G-quadruplex nucleic acid structure

Featured in:

  • Book Review in Angewandte Chemie International Edition in English
  • Book Review in Journal of the American Chemical Society