Funded PhD Studentships

A theoretical underpinning of chiral selectivity on magnetic surfaces

Investigators
PI: Alex Thom, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
CO-I: Dimitar Sasselov, Department of Astrochemistry, Harvard University

PhD candidate: Bence Csakany

New experiments showing the spontaneous generation of chirality by molecules interacting with magnetic surfaces have recently been reported, and it is supposed that this occurs because of quantum-mechanical exchange interactions between chiral molecules and the magnetic surface, though the precise mechanism is unknown.

This project investigates the theoretical foundations underpinning this mechanism by performing the detailed quantum calculations to determine if this mechanism is correct and understand and predict under what conditions it can occur.

This understanding will provide significant direction into further studies of the origin of biological chirality.

Evaluating the role of meteorite impacts in seeding molecules essential for life: the compositional heterogeneity of the LL6 parent body as preserved in the Morokweng impact melt sheet

Investigator
PI: Helen Williams, department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge      
PhD candidate: Randolph Maier

Summary
Asteroids and comets may have played a critical role in delivering feedstocks and generating conditions for the origin of life on early Earth. The Morokweng impact crater, South Africa, is the site of a hypervelocity chondritic asteroid impact striking Earth 145 million years ago. The 760-m-thick melt sheet contains numerous preserved impactor clasts, the only such example known on Earth. The clasts present an opportunity to constrain whether the physical and chemical conditions during and after impact could have given rise to environmental conditions facilitating prebiotic chemistry. The answers to these questions will contribute to our understanding of the nature of the material delivered to the early Earth and the survivability of that material during impact, research that specifically addresses the Theme 2 goals of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, namely, can we characterise the environments on Earth and other planets that could act as the cradle of prebiotic chemistry and life?