The 118th ICREA Colloquium ‘Unveiling the Secrets of Life through Theory and Experiment Toward Understanding Human Singularity: Neural and Behavioral Signatures of Reasoning Strategies in Infants and Adults’

ABSTRACT

Pau Gorostiza and Carme Rovira i Virgili

Knowledge is ultimately based on empirical observations. But thinking ahead to the possible outcomes of an experiment or trying to build general theories to explain its results are as important to building knowledge as the experiment itself. While this holds true for all fields of science, describing and predicting with atomic detail the chemical processes that sustain and regulate life has been possible only recently, by means of powerful computers and advanced simulation methods.

Here, we will overview several projects that combined theory and experiment for diverse purposes, from understanding how electricity flows between proteins in the cells’ powerhouses to designing drugs that can be switched on and off with light. We will then give an outlook of current and future challenges to peek into the secrets of life at the atomic scale.