A tale of two centres addressing the topic of life in the Universe

How did life emerge on Earth? Is the Universe full of life? What is the nature of life? For the first time, addressing these questions is within the grasp of modern science. We are at a defining moment for understanding the origins of life in the Universe. In ten years, samples collected by the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will be returned to Earth and extremely powerful telescopes will have the potential to detect the first signatures of life in planetary and exoplanetary atmospheres. Now, more than ever, the academic community needs a deeper and more robust understanding of what life is, how life originated on our planet, and how life might have emerged elsewhere in our Universe. I shall present the motivation that lead to establish the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (LCLU) at Cambridge and the Centre for Origins and Prevalence of Life (COPL) at Cambridge and the research concepts these two centre are developing.