BREAKTHROUGH DISCUSS 2026
20 & 21 OCTOBER FROM 8AM BST
BREAKTHROUGH DISCUSS 2026
20 & 21 OCTOBER FROM 8AM BST
LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE:
AN EXPLORATORY DEBATE
Embedded Files
20 & 21 OCTOBER FROM 8AM BST
LOGISTICAL INFORMATION
LOGISTICAL INFORMATION
Registration
The conference and receptions are invitation only and capacity limited in person. Please e-mail breakthroughdiscuss@physics.ox.ac.uk if you did not receive an invite and wish to attend in person. We will consider your request provided there is capacity and affiliation with a partnering institution.
Travel sponsorship
We are sponsoring travel for SOC members and speakers. We are also soliciting applications from conference attendees to receive travel bursaries. Please see your registration form for more information.
Accommodation
Oxford is always busy and it is strongly recommended to book your accommodation soonest. You can sample Oxford life by staying at one of the colleges, a hotel or B&B. SOC members, speakers and some bursary awardees will stay at The Randolph Hotel (Beaumont St, Oxford OX1 2LN, United Kingdom).
University Rooms provides a booking service for rooms and colleges and other university owned accommodation at reasonable rates, particularly during the University vacations. Bookings may be made directly with hotels or through companies such as booking.com, hotels.com, easyhotel.com, premierinn.com etc.
Venue
Rhodes House
S Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3RG, United Kingdom
Visiting Oxford
Oxford is a beautiful city of stunning architecture, history and culture. You'll find ancient and modern colleges, fascinating museums and galleries, and plenty of parks, gardens and green spaces in which to relax. The city centre is small enough to cover on foot and only a few minutes walk from the main rail and coach stations. Information on transport links including the nearest airports can be found here: Visiting Oxford.
Past content
Content and videos from previous years are available here: breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/5.
Questions
Please contact: breakthroughdiscuss@physics.ox.ac.uk
WIFI AND ZOOM
WIFI AND ZOOM
Venue WiFi
Network: TBA
Password: TBA
Zoom webinar link
TBA
DAY ONE – OCTOBER 20th
DAY ONE – OCTOBER 20th
WELCOMING REMARKS
WELCOMING REMARKS
S. Pete Worden
Breakthrough Prize Foundation
Breakthrough Initiatives
TBD
University of Oxford
TBD
University of Cambridge
SESSION 1
WHAT CONSTITUTES A BIOSIGNATURE?
SESSION 1
WHAT CONSTITUTES A BIOSIGNATURE?
The search for life beyond Earth has entered a transformative era. Within the Solar System, exploration spans in situ robotic missions on Mars and forthcoming investigations of the subsurface oceans of icy moons orbiting the giant planets. Beyond it, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is enabling atmospheric characterisation of potentially habitable terrestrial planets, super-Earths, and Hycean worlds, with next-generation observatories under development. Recent JWST observations have reported the first detections of simple carbon-bearing molecules in several candidate Hycean worlds, alongside hints of more complex species.
Across these diverse environments, a central question has emerged with renewed urgency: what constitutes a biosignature? Which signatures of life should we seek in different planetary settings, and can we detect them with current and upcoming capabilities? This session brings together perspectives from Solar System exploration, exoplanet characterisation, and biosignature theory to assess the path ahead.
SCIENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
SCIENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Nikku Madhusudhan
University of Cambridge
Jonathan Lunine
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Alex Archibald
University of Cambridge
SPEAKERS
SPEAKERS
John Lee Grenfell (DLR)
John Lee Grenfell (DLR)
John Lee Grenfell was born in South Wales in 1968. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 1995 in 3D atmospheric modeling of the Antarctic ozone hole. After a three-year research fellowship at the University of Birmingham in photochemical modeling of atmospheric pollution he spent two years in New York at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies performing climate predictions for the forthcoming century using a general circulation model with coupled atmosphere-ocean. In 2000 he moved to Berlin where he worked on developing climate-photochemical models for application in exoplanetary science. In 2017 he became staff scientist at the German Aerospace Centre in Berlin and senior scientist in 2020. He is currently leading the working group modeling atmospheric evolution of rocky exoplanets as part of the PLATO space mission.
Eddie Schwieterman (UC Riverside)
Eddie Schwieterman (UC Riverside)
Dr. Edward (Eddie) Schwieterman is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist who studies planetary atmospheres, including their climates, chemistries, and spectral observables. He is particularly focused on research that can inform our ability to characterize temperate exoplanets with current and future observational platforms, especially in search of remotely detectable biosignatures. He is similarly interested in assessing potential planetary-scale signatures of technology (‘technosignatures’) and has published influential and highly cited papers on both exoplanet biosignatures and technosignatures and their potential false positives and negatives. Schwieterman holds B.S. degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from the Florida Institute of Technology (2010), an M.S. in Astronomy from the University of Washington (2011), and a dual PhD in Astronomy and Astrobiology from the University of Washington in Seattle (2016). His current position is Associate Professor of Astrobiology at the University of California, Riverside, where he leads the Planetary Astrobiology Laboratory.
SESSION TWO
IS COMPLEX LIFE THE PRODUCT OF BIOLOGICAL POLLUTION, OR ITS ENVIRONMENT?
SESSION TWO
IS COMPLEX LIFE THE PRODUCT OF BIOLOGICAL POLLUTION, OR ITS ENVIRONMENT?
Complex life on Earth evolved because planetary conditions made it possible. If complex life evolved elsewhere, those planets had environments capable of supporting its emergence. But how do such conditions arise, persist, and change?
This session examines the relative importance of geology and biology in shaping planetary habitability. Geological and environmental processes (e.g. volcanism, tectonics, climate regulation, ocean chemistry, and elemental cycling) may set the conditions within which life can survive and diversify. Yet life can also transform its own environment. Metabolic by-products such as oxygen can alter atmospheric, oceanic, and surface chemistry, changing the availability of essential elements and energy sources.
The central question is: to what extent complex life owes its existence to biological “pollution”, or are the effects of life on planetary conditions ultimately overwhelmed by geology?
SCIENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
SCIENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Claire Guimond
Claire Guimond
ETH Zurich &
University of Oxford
Tad Komacek
Tad Komacek
University of Oxford
James Bryson
James Bryson
University of Oxford
Tim Coulson
Tim Coulson
University of Oxford
Hal Drakesmith
Hal Drakesmith
University of Oxford
SPEAKERS
SPEAKERS
Kira Podolosky (MIT)
Kira Podolosky (MIT)
Dr. Kira Podolsky works at the interface of chemistry and biology to understand the point at which non-living matter exhibits life-like functions. As a Schmidt Science Fellow in Prof. Ronald T. Raines’ laboratory at MIT, she investigates how simple peptide catalysts could have acted as evolutionary precursors to modern enzymes. Her work appears in Nature and ACS journal, she received the inaugural Stratingh Award in Molecular Chemistry, and she is recognized for her mentorship at MIT. Dr. Podolsky’s research bridges molecular chemistry and synthetic biology to build minimal, programmable systems that probe how chemistry becomes life, with the long-term goal of translating discoveries about primitive catalysts and artificial cells into platform technologies for engineering biology.
Alex Cagan (Cambridge)
Alex Cagan (Cambridge)
Alex Cagan is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Genetics, Pathology, and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, and Theme Lead for Reproduction, Development and Lifelong Health. His research investigates somatic evolution (how mutations accumulate and selection operates in healthy tissues) and what this reveals about cancer and ageing. His group focuses on three areas: ageing, cancer resistance mechanisms including Peto's Paradox, and environmental monitoring. Originally trained in Anthropology as a Cambridge undergraduate, he later moved into genetics and now conducts research at both Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. He is also an accomplished scientific illustrator, with work featured on the cover of Nature.
Ros Rickaby (Oxford)
Ros Rickaby (Oxford)
Ros Rickaby is Chair of Geology at the University of Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences and a Fellow of University College. She leads the OceanBUG research group, exploring the evolving interactions between phytoplankton, ocean chemistry, atmospheric composition, and Earth's climate. Her work extracts chemical signatures from the fossil shells of marine micro-organisms (foraminifera and coccolithophores) to reconstruct past ocean conditions, while increasingly using the physiology and genomes of modern organisms to read Earth's history, an approach she calls "palaeophysiology." Current projects span pelagic calcification, enhanced ocean alkalinity and rock weathering, blue carbon, coral heat tolerance, and safe ocean-based carbon sequestration.
DAY TWO – 21st OCTOBER
DAY TWO – 21st OCTOBER
WELCOMING REMARKS
WELCOMING REMARKS
S. Pete Worden
Breakthrough Prize Foundation
Breakthrough Initiatives
TBD
University of Oxford
Michael Garrett
University of Manchester
SESSION THREE
SHOULD HUMANITY DELIBERATELY TRANSMIT SIGNALS TO EXTRATERRESTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS?
SESSION THREE
SHOULD HUMANITY DELIBERATELY TRANSMIT SIGNALS TO EXTRATERRESTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS?
Should humanity deliberately transmit messages toward nearby stars, or restrict itself to passive listening? Although Earth has emitted radio signals for decades through broadcasting, radar, and planetary observations, transmitting signals with the intention of attracting extraterrestrial attention is another matter.
The issue was highly polarized in the early 2010s, leading many organizations to avoid direct engagement. Yet the context has changed: thousands of exoplanets have been discovered, radio astronomy has advanced, and technosignature research has gained renewed momentum. The time is ripe to revisit this topic more than a decade later, bringing together experts in technosignatures, astrobiology, radio astronomy, and philosophy. The session would examine whether scientific and societal considerations have evolved, and whether active interstellar messaging should remain controversial, be cautiously pursued, or avoided altogether.
SCIENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
SCIENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Michael Garrett
Michael Garrett
University of Manchester
Andrew Fraknoi
Andrew Fraknoi
UCSF
Daniela De Paulis
Daniela De Paulis
SETI Institute
Speakers: TBD
Speakers: TBD
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Leanne O'Donnell
Leanne O'Donnell
University of Oxford
Ashling Gordon
Ashling Gordon
University of Oxford
Kasia Metkowski
Kasia Metkowski
Breakthrough Prize Foundation
Kyran Grattan
Kyran Grattan
Breakthrough Initiatives
Conference Director
Dillon O'Reilly
Dillon O'Reilly
Breakthrough Initiatives
Jamie Drew
Jamie Drew
Breakthrough Initiatives
Andrew Siemion
Andrew Siemion
University of Oxford
Steve Croft
Steve Croft
University of Oxford
Therese Docherty
Therese Docherty
University of Oxford
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