Jack Szostak, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Distinguished Investigator at Mass. General, described how efforts to design and build very simple living cells are testing our assumptions about the nature of life, generating ideas about how life emerged from the chemistry of early Earth, and offering clues as to how modern life evolved from its earliest ancestors.

Part of the Evolution Matters series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.