Zack Cohen

Affiliation: Center for the Emergence of Life (CEL)

Branch: Exobiology Branch (STX)

Email: zachary.r.cohen@nasa.gov

Professional Biography

Zack Cohen is a postdoctoral fellow at NASA Ames Research Center, where he is investigating whether coevolution of small RNAs could have enabled the formation of the first ribozymes during the origin of life. Zack received his PhD in Chemistry and Astrobiology from the University of Washington in spring 2023. At UW, Zack was an NSF Graduate Research fellow, and he investigated the behavior of fatty acid membranes in evaporating lakes on the early Earth. Zack received a B.S. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Physics and Integrative Biology.

Education

2023 PhD in Chemistry and Astrobiology, University of Washington

2017 BS in Physics and Integrative Biology, University of Illiinois Urbana-Champaign

Research Interests

Origin of life on Earth

Astrobiology

Synthetic cells

Green chemistry

Select Publications

Cohen et al. 2024. Natural soda lakes provide compatible conditions for RNA and membrane function that could have enabled the origin of life. PNAS Nexus 3 (3) pgae084.

Cohen et al. 2024. Stabilization of Prebiotic Vesicles by Peptides Depends on Sequence and Chirality: A Mechanism for Selection of Protocell-Associated Peptides. Langmuir 40 (17), 8971-8980.