The laser spark of life triggered at the PALS facility recognized by the Czech Science Foundation
On Wednesday, 23rd September 2020, the president of the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) awarded the GACR prize to the project entitled “Origins of Life on the Earth and in the Universe – Experiments and Theory“. The proposer of the project was Judit E. Sponer (Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences) and its co-proposers were Libor Juha (Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences) and Martin Ferus (J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences). As seen from the project title, the subject was a study of complex and little known processes taking place on the early Earth and also at more distant places in the Universe, which might have led to a formation of more complex organic molecules starting from small molecules and so create the fundamental building blocks of the living matter and/or of their precursors.
