Brian Cafferty of Georgia Tech giving his talk on 'Efficient Monomer Assembly and the Origin of RNA

After a 14 hour plane ride the day before, on a wet and gloomy morning, a few researchers from Harvard and Georgia Tech set out for the Tokyo Tech Ookayama campus to participate in a Chemistry Workshop organized by ELSI researcher Albert Fahrenbach. Dr. Fahrenbach spends time both at ELSI and Harvard, so this workshop was a great way to bring the two parts together. Meanwhile, hundreds of clear plastic umbrellas were hastily making their way through the streets to find shelter amidst the rain coming from the gray clouds. It was also quite cold, the kind of cold where you just want to stay in bed for just another few minutes. Or hours. Or indefinitely. But luckily, everyone was still suffering from jetlag so we'd all woken up really early in the morning raring to go. For most of the group, it was their first time in Tokyo, and man is it different from the States. People seemed to dress very differently, it was a lot cleaner than most American cities, and all of the trains ran exactly on time. Coming from Boston, where the trains have a tendency to be horrible, we were very, very impressed. So we hopped on the express train bound for Ookayama. While on the (nearly empty) train, we wondered why it was so empty despite it being the time of the morning when people turn into sardines. Maybe we got lucky, I still don't know. Later on, some of us would discover the mass confusion of the Tokyo transit system-a system that sometimes traps unsuspecting tourists to transfer multiple times to lines run by different companies and pay multiple fares despite it all looking like the same system. But that's a story for another day.

We got off the train and walked through the Tokyo Tech campus, past some very loud construction, finally reaching the ELSI building. We were welcomed very warmly by the ELSI staff, in parallel with the physical warmth of being inside a building. We were later told that the construction outside was for the future ELSI building. Walking into the conference area, we were greeted by tables shaped like all seven continents (or five depending on when you were schooled). So taking a seat on each of our favorite continents, it was time to get started.

The workshop itself featured researchers from Harvard, Georgia Tech, ELSI, and the University of Tokyo with highly diverse research interests working on a plethora of different research areas. It was especially exciting to see such great research being carried out at such a new research institute like ELSI, which hasn't even seen it's second birthday! From vesicle assembly and growth, to geochemical peptide synthesis processes, parasitic replicators, non-enzymatic RNA polymerization, why nucleobases were designed the way they were, deletion of amino acids from living systems, and even to a discussion of modern-day Miller-Urey experiments, the topics and ideas discussed were likened to the ultimate smorgasbord of prebiotic chemistry. Now obviously, due to the sheer breadth, no one can possibly be an expert in all of these fields. But no one is expecting anyone to be an expert in everything. The mission of ELSI is to bring the leading scientists in the fields of origins research together to collaborate and discuss potential pathways towards the formation of early life. And I'd say that for this afternoon, this goal was absolutely realized. Except that there weren't any planetary scientists. But don't worry, they had another workshop a week later.

Workshop participants from Harvard, Georgia Tech, Univ. of Tokyo and ELSI out to dinner.

Afterwards, it was off to a local izakaya for some great food, drink, and conversation. Amidst all the kanpais, we were able to unwind and get a better sense of who everyone was and what we were all about. We discussed our first impressions of Tokyo so far, learned about various Japanese foods and customs, and just had a great time relaxing and talking to new friends. We even tried new, exotic foods that we'd never even heard of. Some of it was delicious. Some of it definitely was not. Now I won't go into the exact details of all the great (and weird) food we had here, but if you really want to hear about it, I'm happy to go give an in-depth play-by-play analysis.

In the end I'm sure it took a ton of work, time, and effort to move a bunch of people from America over to Japan for this workshop (especially for the staff at ELSI), but it was definitely a great experience for all of us who made the trek over. We were also graciously invited to attend the ELSI symposium, and had a great time exploring the various neighborhoods of Tokyo and the surrounding areas. Tokyo is ginormous, and if you ever have a chance to visit Tokyo, you definitely should at some point. Tons of great food, great people, and best of all, a train system that actually works! Until next time.