#77 Lee Cronin: Origin Of Life, Aliens, Controversial New Theories, Digitising Chemistry & Consciousness

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The Giants Shoulder

Evan McGloughlin

79 episodes

4 days ago

A Neuroscience podcast. Each week I talk with experts on a range of topics from consciousness and neuroplasticity to evolution and everything in between. I have a particular interest in consciousness and understanding our inner subjective conscious experience. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is the co-founder of 2 (failed) edtech startups. He is a professional tennis coach and Triathlete enthusiast.

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#77 Lee Cronin: Origin Of Life, Aliens, Controversial New Theories, Digitising Chemistry & Consciousness

The Giants Shoulder

1 hour 26 minutes 43 seconds

4 days ago

#77 Lee Cronin: Origin Of Life, Aliens, Controversial New Theories, Digitising Chemistry & Consciousness

Professor Lee Cronin is one of the world’s most visionary chemists — the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow — whose work is redefining how we search for alien life, invent new drugs, and understand the fundamental rules of the universe.

He’s the creator of Chemputation, the first real attempt to program matter itself, and co-author of Assembly Theory, a radical new framework that measures the “memory” embedded in molecules — revealing how chemistry becomes biology, how complexity evolves, and how we might detect life anywhere in the cosmos. His lab is building inorganic cells, digitising chemical synthesis, designing billions of new drug candidates at once, and working with NASA to develop a universal test for extraterrestrial life.

Expect to learn why the universe has a memory, why copy number may be the most important concept in astrobiology, how assembly index can quantify causation and complexity, how Cronin’s “chemputer” could democratise drug discovery, how mass spectrometry can reveal alien biosignatures, why he thinks life on other planets won’t look like Earth at all, why chemistry and consciousness are linked through causation, and much more…

Timestamps:

00:02:30 Celebrating Chemify's Milestone Funding

03:06:34 Understanding Chemputation: Programming Chemistry

06:10:38 Exploring Chemical Space: The Universe of Molecules

09:10:19 The Future of Drug Discovery: Beyond Current Limitations

12:26:54 The Intersection of Chemistry and Biology

15:21:51 Building the Chemifarm: A New Era in Chemistry

18:22:50 The Vision for Personalized Medicine

23:19:49 Assembly Theory: A New Approach to Drug Discovery

43:21:51 The Challenge of Pain Management and Addiction

46:44:14 Exploring Assembly Theory and Drug Development

52:34:04 The Assembly Index: Measuring Complexity in Chemistry

54:31:01 Assembly Theory and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

01:02:53 Rethinking Astrobiology: Life Beyond Earth

01:17:26 Radical Ideas: Faster Than Light Information Transfer

...

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