09 Sep. Junior researcher: Laser sheds light into darkness of the primordial soup
How did life on earth originate? Physicist Dr Corinna Kufner wants to use ultrafast spectroscopy to elucidate the reaction mechanisms in the primordial soup on the early Earth – as mixed and dirty as it must have been – using ultrashort flashes of light. She is setting up a junior research group at the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) in Jena for this purpose. Kufner’s research aims to gain fundamental insights into the origin of life and ageing processes and to advance the development of photocatalysts for sustainable energy production – and could even provide clues as to the conditions under which life could develop on other planets.
‘On the surface of the early Earth, the building blocks of life – molecules such as RNA, DNA, peptides and lipids – were exposed to sunlight,’ explains Kufner. ‘This could have influenced crucial reaction pathways that cannot be traced in dark laboratory experiments.’ Their aim is to uncover these unknown pathways and understand the mechanisms that the light triggered in the primordial soup.
Interdisciplinary research group
In order to decipher the role of UV light in the origin of life, Kufner is setting up a junior research group at the Leibniz IPHT in Jena with funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation as part of the CZS Nexus programme. The support from the Carl Zeiss Foundation, which will reportedly amount to 1.5 million euros, will enable her to set up an interdisciplinary team and an independent laboratory in Jena for five years from 1 January 2025. Her research project ‘UV LiFE’ combines approaches from physics, chemistry, astronomy, geochemistry and machine learning in order to overcome challenges in the research field ‘Origins of Life’ through a novel photochemical perspective. To this end, she wants to combine ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy with prebiotic photochemistry in order to open up new reaction pathways and elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms.
Before Corinna Kufner came to Jena, she spent six years at Harvard University, where she set up and headed a laboratory for transient absorption spectroscopy. There she specialised in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy, a technique that makes extremely short molecular processes visible through time-resolved investigations with ultrashort light pulses. ‘The Leibniz IPHT combines precisely the disciplines that are essential for my research: Photonics, chemistry and life sciences,’ explains Kufner.
From Harvard to Jena with ‘Women in Photonics’
The international career workshop ‘Women in Photonics’, which the institute uses to network young female researchers with experts from science and industry, paved the way for a move to Leibniz IPHT. Corinna Kufner took part in 2020 and familiarised herself with the institute and its technological infrastructure.
Dr Corinna Kufner is setting up a junior research group at Leibniz IPHT in Jena to investigate the origin of life using ultrafast spectroscopy. Image: Stela Todorova/ Leibniz-IPHT
Basic knowledge for medicine and sustainable energy production
Kufner’s research is a valuable addition to the Leibniz IPHT with its focus on light-based processes for the life sciences, says Professor Jürgen Popp, Scientific Director of the Leibniz IPHT ‘The potential areas of application of her research complement our goals in many ways: from photodynamic cancer therapy and UV sterilisation against bacteria and viruses to the development of photocatalysts for sustainable energy production.’
‘I work at the interface between Origins of Life and photonics,’ says Kufner. ‘Very little mechanistic research has been done in the origins of life field so far, especially with regard to photo-induced processes. In the pump-probe spectroscopy community, on the other hand, questions about the origin of life have hardly been considered so far. I am bringing these two fields together.’
Source: www.leibniz-ipht.de
Image: Stela Todorova/ Leibniz-IPHT