News

Our work on prebiotic peptide formation under early Earth conditions is featured in Nature Communications’ “Early Earth Collection”.

Editorial by Julia Eckhoff:

Today I was invited to present my work at The Centre for Resources and Earth Energy Systems, CeREES, as part of their seminar series. I discussed the versatility molecular modelling offers: whether the emergence of protobiomolecules, delamination of layered materials or enhanced oil recovery, all these processes are driven by the molecular interactions at the interface.

CeREES is the only research centre in the UK that works across all geoenergy and resource themes, carrying out high-level multidisciplinary research in Petroleum, Unconventional Hydrocarbons, Geothermal, Clean Coal, Resources from Waste, Carbon Capture and Storage, Water and Mineral Resources.

This week I have been invited to Subatech, IMT Atlantique by Prof Andrey Kalinichev.

It was a great opportunity to meet the group, discuss science and work together on some challenging clay systems!

Really enjoyed this trip!

I am humbled to receive this year’s Institute of Physics BRSG Founder’s Prize for the presentation of my methodology, coupling MD and ssNMR, to rationalise dynamics in solids.

The prize is in memory of the late Professor E R Andrew, founder of British Radiofrequency Spectroscopy Group. Prof Andrew was a pioneer of magic angle spinning and other methods in magnetic resonance.

This week I had a fantastic opportunity to participate in the Interdisciplinary Origin of Life meeting organised by Institute of Molecular Evolution and hosted in the beautiful Schloß Mickeln, Düsseldorf.

The meeting brought together researches from disciplines as diverse as geochemistry, bioinformatics, astrophysics and philosophy, all sharing the passion for the study of Origin of Life.

Throughout the meeting, we held roundtable discussions to debate our ideas and views, discuss the unknowns in the field, and talk about the future direction of this research.

I was honoured to chair “From Geochemistry to Biochemistry – a Tough Transition” roundtable, full of passionate and engaging discussions on the emergence of very first molecules and the formation of very first polymeric systems starting life as we know it today.

I am confident that this Interdisciplinary Origin of Life meeting will generate new ideas and lead to many fruitful collaborations in future!

So excited to be talking and chairing discussions at the upcoming Interdisciplinary Origin of Life Meeting organised by Institute of Molecular Evolution, Heinrich Heine Universität, Düsseldorf.

Workshop timetable and details via www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de 

It was honoured to be invited to the Annual BRSG meeting: “Advances in experimental and simulation methods for NMR and EPR“ and to deliver a talk about my very recent work linking solid-state NMR and molecular dynamics simulations.

The annual meeting was dedicated to celebrating 50 years in NMR of Prof. Jim Emsley and Prof. Geoffrey Luckhurst. It was a pleasure to meet Jim and Geoffrey and to hear about their adventures in the work of magnetic resonance.

In a presentation, entitled “Computational Chemistry as a Time-Traveller’s Tool”, Valentina discusses how her molecular modeling techniques allow studying phenomena that occurred millions of years ago, that lead to the transition from geo- to biochemistry. She then demonstrates how the same methods, used to address fundamental questions, can also be applied to today’s problems of industrial interest, such as enhanced oil recovery and synthesis of high surface materials. All these processes are driven by interactions between organic molecules and layered materials under conditions difficult to reproduce through experiment alone.