Amit Kahana

Thank you for @cssociety.bsky.social for sponsoring my attendance at the @aliceworkshop.org workshop a few weeks ago. Appreciate it!

A tremendous paper showing the prevalence and catalytic potential of many unexplored regions of chemical space. I am highly doubtful it tells us anything about the origin of life, but it keeps the flame of the field burning. Congrats!

Want a community of early-career folks thinking about how life begins? 🧬✨

OoLEN is for students + postdocs + early faculty focused on origins-of-life research.
We share: opportunities, events, resources, and member spotlights.

Join: oolen.org/join
#OriginOfLife #ECR

With about a dozen ongoing projects, I intend for this year to show just how far I've come. Work more independently, seeing projects published, make closer ties with the community, learn more skills and push my science forward, as much as I can.

Academia is incredible - you have so much freedom to be creative and play around, discuss technical details and deep philosophy, work independently and collaboratively, and all through sheer intellectual determination. I love it here.

I've dabbled in many areas- enzymology, immunology, genetics, microbiology, metabolomics, and eventually chemistry and protobiology. I've tried to learn everything and get inspired by different types of research, loving the complexity embedded in the natural world driven by evolution.

In February it's going to be ten years since I made the decision to pursue a career in science. It's been a great journey - and I hope as I move forward I will keep improving and honing my skills, and make more impactful discoveries.

@oolen.bsky.social session live now, come join us!

It was absolutely incredible to have the honor of giving the “Mendel Lecture” at the Augustinian Abbey in Brno, where Mendel lived and worked. While Mendel is the greatest hero of genetics, the lessons from his story were never learned 👇

4+ years into this project and I'm still spending my weekends wrestling with data and interpretation. It's not coming easy but I promise it's coming

UKRI announces winners of £120 million Future Leaders Fellowships Research into the causes of lung cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are among 77 projects to be funded by UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships.

Thrilled to share that I have been awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship! 🤩
I am really grateful to my colleagues at Cambridge Biochemistry for their support and to the UKRI for believing in me and funding this project!
Stay tuned for Research Assistant and Associate positions available!

Dr Seán Jordan: Was there ancient life on Mars? My DCU team are doing our bit to assess Nasa’s latest discovery On Wednesday, Nasa announced that the Perseverance rover had identified potential biosignatures – signs of ancient life – on Mars.

I wrote some thoughts on NASA's most recent announcement about 'potential biosignatures' on Mars in the Irish Independent today:

www.independent.ie/irish-news/d...

@protosignslab.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @researchireland.ie @dcu-lsi.bsky.social @dcuresearch.bsky.social

The GARD model, developed by prof Doron Lancet, simulates the compositional reproduction of lipid assemblies, and can be tuned with real kinetic data. There are other models depending on your research topic, e.g. probiotic chemistry and autocatalysis, but I swear this one is simple and it works.

The relief when you finally understand the trends in the data.

🧪 Curious how chemistry becomes biology? Join OoLEN’s open seminar Thu Sep 12, 06:30 UTC (15:30 JST / 08:30 CEST) !

📣 We’ll share a short yearly update, then Tony Z Jia dives into Primitive Polyester Microdroplets on Early Earth. 🫧🌍

▶️ Live stream: youtube.com/@OoLEN_org

Honored to act as guest editor for a special issue in MDPI Life, together with my good friend and mentor Doron Lancet. It's a great platform for progressing concepts in the field beyond current paradigms, especially for early career scientists. Drop a message if you are interested!
brnw.ch/21wUITi

My postdoc position is open again! If you’re interested and did not get your application in last time, please send one by end of this week! Start date asap, latest by end of Fall. ‼️

Interested in moving/establishing your research group in Ireland?

www.researchireland.ie/funding/glob...

I'd love to see more #originoflife #astrobiology researchers join us here!

Feel free to contact me directly to discuss!

@abgradcon.bsky.social @oolen.bsky.social @dcuresearch.bsky.social

Had a great time presenting my work on Assembly Theory and molecular phylogenetics at the GRS and GRC on Molecular Mechanisms of Evolution in Boston, and the FALCON origin of life and astrobiology conference at Reykjavik. Feeling inspired!

Israeli scientists unveil leukemia breakthrough just before missile demolishes research building After surviving a direct Iranian missile hit, Israeli researchers from the Weizmann Institute revealed a groundbreaking blood test that detects early signs of leukemia and tracks blood aging—offering ...

www.ynetnews.com/health_scien...

I'm so excited to be on my way to #FALCON2025, our first jointly organized early-carrer conference of AbGradE and @oolen.bsky.social in Reykjavik 🇮🇸🌋! Can't wait to meet everyone and talk exciting science! 🤩

More info
oolen.org/news-and-events/in-person-meetings/falcon2025
and
abgrade.eu/falcon2025

Science is not a sum-zero game - be generous with your ideas. Give them away, and everyone wins.

Accidentally spilled my experiment. I'll have to repeat it tomorrow.

Saying it now - my crazy project works and it's important. So happy about it.

Officially Doctor Amit.

What I expect from a peer review process is good constructive cooments that aim to improve my science. Some reviewers clearly use this opportunity for personal attacks and to vent frustrations without properly addressing the work. I don't mind rejection, but give me a good fair reason for it.

Fantastic! Thanks Rian

Assembly Theory is a generalized constructive neutral theory of evolution

Rereading my thesis for spelling errors and it's actually really good I'm pleased with it

Save the date!
The annual #Conference on #ArtificialLife - #ALIFE2025 will take place in the heart of Kyoto, Japan, from 6-10 October 2025. The conference logo, official website launch, and more details coming soon!