Department of Physics 2018 graduate Ş. Furkan Öztürk was among the scientists who made a series of breakthrough discoveries on the origin of life on Earth: Transition of inorganic molecules into organic matter. “It is a real breakthrough.” said origin of life chemist and Nobel laureate Jack Szostak, “Homochirality is essential to get biology started, and this is a possible — and I would say very likely — solution.”
Ş. Furkan Öztürk pursues a PhD degree at Harvard University. His studies suggest a plausible solution to this elusive problem. In a quest of three articles, the authors combine state-of-the-art knowledge in physics, prebiotic chemistry and geochemistry and offer a physical mechanism that can break the mirror symmetry of biomolecules under prebiotic Earth conditions.
