The evolution of cell division: from archaea to eukaryotes

Living systems propagate by undergoing rounds of cell growth and division. In fact, all modern day organisms are the progeny of a single cell that divided over 3.5 billion years ago. In this talk, by looking at features of the cell division machinery that we (eukaryotes) share with our cellular relatives, the archaea, we will attempt to shed light on the origins of our cell division machinery. In addition, by studying cell division in Sulfolobus, a member of the TACK/Asgard archaea, we will ask whether it is possible to use these relatively simple organisms to reveal fundamental features of the process of cell division that are hard to discern in our cells because of their relative complexity.