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[Music]

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[Applause]

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I think when we conceived of this

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session we thought that we would I

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really wanted to call it weird life but

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we got kind of merged with some other

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sessions and so we had to make a more

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general term and so you guys have

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already heard about Hot Springs and sea

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floors and so I want to kind of

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transition oh and maybe even Mars and so

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I wanted to transition to some other

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locations that we could think of life

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beginning and this has been borne out of

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a project from the ideas lab which

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stemmed from can we have oil-based life

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so scientists generally think that we

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are looking for liquid water when we

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look for exoplanets and the question is

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is that a good assumption and can we get

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any interesting behaviors from polymers

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in a non-polar phase so is hydrogen

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bonding really necessary for our liquids

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and so I would like to just start by

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thanking my collaborators and that's

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Lauren Williams from Georgia Tech Paul

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bratter from University Saint Louis

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University Chris butch is at LC Tokyo

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and Mike travisano is at the University

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of Minnesota and they have all been

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instrumental in kind of shaping these

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ideas and then I work at a predominantly

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undergraduate institution so I have a

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kind of team of undergraduates who have

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participated in this research and

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evolved it to where it is today and I

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think that it's really important to

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recognize specifically brooke thompson

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who did a large amount of the amino acid

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work and then Tanner Brawl who's working

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on some of the results that I'm not

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really showing here and of course I'd

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like to thank our benevolent overlords

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NSF and NASA for supporting these

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projects so the idea of how do you even

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test if oil phases are good for life is

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is a challenging topic right how do you

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evaluate if this is possible and our

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solution was to say if we can get any

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kind of polymer into an oil phase and

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have it interact with another polymer

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that might be considered functionality

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and you know that actually turned out to

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be a pretty lofty goal and so first we

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started with analyzing how biological

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polymers enter oil phases and I wanted

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to answer the question can they and also

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when they enter those phases do they

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have any interesting structures so the

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biomolecules that I'm looking at and

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that I'm showing you here are amino

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acids and proteins specifically we have

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some amino acids and we evaluate them

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both in the acidic the neutral and the

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basic form because you can see the

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charge changes so in the acidic form we

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have a positive charge on our ammonia

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and a neutral carboxylic acid in the

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neutral form we have as whitter ionic

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situation where both the base and the

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acid are charged and then in our basic

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system our ammonia deprotonates and our

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carboxylate is deep charged negatively

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charged and we tested one charged amino

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acid glutamic acid it has a carboxylate

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on its side chain we also tested glycine

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and of course phenylalanine and

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phenylalanine was our initial choice

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because it is a little more hydrophobic

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and so we're hoping that would force

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things into our oil phase we have also

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looked at polymers oh and so we have

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looked at dye glycine and tri glycine

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and we've tried two different proteins

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so we tried BSA because it's cheap and

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it's in my lab and then we've tried

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tackle race and we were thinking that

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maybe tack would have more

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conformational stability in weird

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environments because of how it folds and

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how it stabilizes for high temperatures

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and so how we do our phase partitioning

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it's essentially I know that you might

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think this must have already been done

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by someone but we actually are cheating

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because we add something to

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counterbalance our charges so we have a

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Dessel sulfate that is in our water

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phase to counterbalance the positive

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charge on our amines

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and we have a desk dido Dessel dimethyl

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ammonium bromide so quaternary amine

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that balances the negative charge on our

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carboxylates

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and the reason that we choose DDA be is

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because it's a transaction agent so it

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can be used to pull DNA into cells and

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so it seems like you know if it can help

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permeate a cell membrane maybe it'll

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help enter an elf ace and so what

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happens when we look at just glycine or

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our monomeric amino acids oh so how this

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works is and how we how we do the

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experiment is we just vortex the water

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phase with our oil phase and we kind of

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hope that some of our biomolecules enter

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into the oil phase we also expect that

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there is some like monomer or sorry mono

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layer forming where our amphiphiles may

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actually partially partition into our

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oil phase we may have some interaction

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here and so to prevent that we actually

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separate out our molecules using HPLC so

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we're really just trying to look at our

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biomolecules and not the other products

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using HPLC and we actually use charged

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aerosol detection which is a universal

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detector so we haven't derivatives our

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amino acids at all and what we see is

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that glutamic acid has it has three

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charged States right it has the aming it

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has two carboxylates and we see that

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it's actually pretty bad at entering oil

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phases this is the just directly from

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the HPLC you can see that we get a large

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amount detected in the water phase and a

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really tiny amount regardless of our

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four PHS that we've tried and we pick

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these PHS because they are in between

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the PKS so we would expect the majority

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of our charge to be in that single state

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and so what we see with glycine is that

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at low pH we have almost no glycine in

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our oil phase but as we increase the pH

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we actually drive the glycine into the

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oil phase which is really promising it's

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possible that the Dessel sulfate that

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we're using is just not hydrophobic

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enough to cause this effect where the

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DDA B has those two hydrocarbon tails

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and so it's more effective but this begs

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the question you know we don't see any

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in our water phase at pH 10 and so

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is actually happening to the glycine

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it's possible that it's organizing at

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the interface which we're not testing or

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it's possible that it is precipitating

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out with maybe charge-charge

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interactions or something so we still

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have further testing to do and then with

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phenylalanine we see that at low pH and

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at high pH we get pretty good

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partitioning phenylalanine is pretty

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hydrophobic but then when it's doubly

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charged so at both a negative and a

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positive charge we see much less

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partitioning at the pH 7 and so I think

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you know this is a little bit predictive

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that you can kind of see that the more

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hydrophobic something is the more likely

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it is to enter an oil phase with the

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help of a phase transfer agent we also

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looked at how changing the amount of our

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phase transfer agent will change our

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partitioning so this is the

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concentration of Dessel sulfate the

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concentration of Desa salts fate indeed

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EAB or the concentration of DD a be

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alone at each of our PHS for

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phenylalanine specifically and we can

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see that as we increase our amount of

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phase transfer agent when we have equal

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molar amounts we have a about 40 percent

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partitioning but it does seem that it is

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going to reach a plateau right so this

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is not an unlimited amount that we can

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partition into an oil phase it's limited

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and interestingly at the pH 7 it

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plateaus that have really low value it's

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about 14 percent of our molecules

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actually partitioning so we also looked

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at polymers because obviously amino

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acids alone aren't super exciting and

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when we look at polymers what we see is

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that the glycine so this is just the

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data kind of reimagined from that first

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slide right so low pH we have almost

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nothing mid pH we have a small portion

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and then the high pH we see 50% of our

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starting material in the oil phase as we

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increase the length of our polymers we

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actually see that those would or ionic

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molecules are not there and you know the

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HPLC is really flat in this region it

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really seems like there are no no

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polymers entering the phase and again

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this could be a partitioning into the

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interface

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be a precipitating out of solution but

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we don't see it fully in the oil phase

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either or in the water phase either and

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a high pH we actually see that we get

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some of these polymers to enter into the

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oil phase and this may suggest that that

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the a mean is more more prone to

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preventing partitioning right when the

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it's an ammonium State it's less likely

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to partition into our oil phase and I

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have not fully characterized our

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proteins yet but we do know that we get

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some partitioning into an oil phase with

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both BSA and TAC so with BSA we try to

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have an absorbance of about 1 in our

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water phase and the difference between

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this dotted line which seems to be light

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scattering versus our BSA about 0.8 so I

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would say that we have about 50% of our

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protein looks like it actually can enter

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an oil phase and this is done with UV

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vis not with HPLC because the proteins

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are so large and if we really want to

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push it we can put a lot of tack into

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our water phase so here we're maxing out

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our detector and we see that we can get

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a pretty large tack peak we have run CV

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on these so circular dichroism can

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predict secondary structure and we

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actually see that we have no secondary

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structure in our oil phase it's likely

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that the proteins are just kind of

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turning inside out that the hydrophobic

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core is being inverted and we're losing

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all of our protein structure so I guess

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that's a downside of this this

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experiment but a result nonetheless and

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I would just like to give a brief

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preview to some of the other things that

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I've been working on so I have very

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similar to Dave Deemer and Nita so hi

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have been talking about have been using

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pH is for electron transfer and in this

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we're actually our goal is to reduce

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carbon dioxide into formate and we

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actually see that we get a pH change

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when we turn on the light so as you turn

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on the light you get an increase in pH

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and we also see if we run mass spec that

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we have a very small in this yellow peak

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a very small formic acid peak so the

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gray is our standard

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and we're it seems like we're actually

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producing formic acid in this process

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and our electron source in these

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reactions is a iron two-plus that iron

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chloride and I'll be talking more about

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this at the GRC in galveston and finally

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I just like to promote something that I

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spent a lot of time on with the help of

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many of you in this room there's an

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origins of life MOOC and it's a free

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course so if you go to complexity

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explore org you can sign up for this you

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can see your own videos if you recorded

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any additionally you can see comments so

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it's a good idea to see how the general

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public receives our kind of our kind of

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science and if you have any students who

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are entering the field that maybe need

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more of a background you can recommend

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this course for them and it gives a good

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overview of the physics the planetary

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science the chemistry the biology of

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origins of life so it's a good kind of

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primer for origins I'd be happy to take

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[Music]

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Thank You Sara we have time just for one

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question and if our men will Canadian is

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in the room I think we may need your

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slides loaded for the last slot so with

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that question is that Palmer hi I'm a

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bit confused what pH means when you're

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dealing with non aqueous solvents

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because the concentration of the H+ in

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the water won't be the same as the non

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aqueous solvent and and the ionization

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state of a molecule like an amino acid

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will change if it goes into the other

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solvent so how do you think about those

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things so I was really referring to we

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dissolve everything in water first and

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so I was referring to the starting water

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pH I don't have a good metric or a good

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system for measuring pH in an oil phase

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and so I have not really addressed that

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but you're right there is definitely a

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change in in PKA as we change our

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solvents thank you Sara