John S. McCaskill (born 1957) is an Australian chemist who works on the evolution of information processing in a wide variety of fields ranging from theoretical biochemistry to novel computation to

artificial life Artificial life (ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline ...

and microrobotics.

Biography

After graduating from

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

in 1978 ( R. G. Gilbert advisor) and obtaining his PhD (D. Phil.) in 1982 as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, McCaskill joined the group of Nobel prize-winner

Manfred Eigen Manfred Eigen (; 9 May 1927 – 6 February 2019) was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Eigen's research helped solve major problems in physical chemistry and ...

at the

Max Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He became Professor for Theoretical Biochemistry at the

Friedrich Schiller University Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

in 1992, founding a multidisciplinary research group in Biomolecular Information Processing (BioMIP) at the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (imb Jena), a field which he pioneered for 25 years while holding positions at the GMD (National Research Center for Information Technology), the

Fraunhofer Society The Fraunhofer Society () is a German publicly-owned research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science (as opposed to the Max Planck Society, which works primarily on Basic re ...

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began ...

, the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...

, and the European Centre for Living Technology at the

Ca' Foscari University of Venice Ca' Foscari University of Venice (), or simply Ca' Foscari, is a public research university and business school in Venice, Italy. Since its foundation in 1868, it has been housed in the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca' Foscari, from which it takes ...

Research

McCaskill is best known for his work on

information processing In cognitive psychology, information processing is an approach to the goal of understanding human thinking that treats cognition as essentially Computing, computational in nature, with the mind being the ''software'' and the brain being the ''hard ...

evolving Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...

and

self-organizing Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order and disorder, order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spont ...

molecular A molecule is a group of two or more atoms that are held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions that satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, ...

systems, spanning theoretical and experimental approaches that include novel devices and systems. His early work on

molecular evolution Molecular evolution describes how Heredity, inherited DNA and/or RNA change over evolutionary time, and the consequences of this for proteins and other components of Cell (biology), cells and organisms. Molecular evolution is the basis of phylogen ...

was theoretical, using non-equilibrium

statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. Sometimes called statistical physics or statistical thermodynamics, its applicati ...

to solve Eigen’s equations of molecular quasispecies for realistic

fitness landscape Fitness may refer to: * Physical fitness, a state of health and well-being of the body * Fitness culture, a sociocultural phenomenon surrounding exercise and physical fitness * Fitness (biology), an individual's ability to propagate its genes * ...

s .Eigen, Manfred, McCaskill, John, and Schuster, Peter. "The molecular quasi-species." Adv. Chem. Phys 75 (1989): 149-263, 1988
doi:10.1002/9780470141243.ch4
/ref> He developed an ensemble approach to RNA structure prediction, now in wide use, and made several contributions, both theoretical and experimental, to the study of spatially-resolved

, including the experimental implementation of spatially-resolved capillary and

microfluidic Microfluidics refers to a system that manipulates a small amount of fluids (10−9 to 10−18 liters) using small channels with sizes of ten to hundreds of micrometres. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves molecular analysis, molecular bi ...

flow reactors and also including the construction of NGEN and MEREGEN, large-scale reconfigurable systolic computers for simulating spatial evolution based on reprogrammmable

FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a type of configurable integrated circuit that can be repeatedly programmed after manufacturing. FPGAs are a subset of logic devices referred to as programmable logic devices (PLDs). They consist of a ...

hardware Since 2000, he has established
chemical microprocessor
technology for electronically

programmable matter Programmable matter is matter which has the ability to change its physical properties (shape, density, moduli, conductivity, optical properties, etc.) in a programmable fashion, based upon user input or autonomous sensing. Programmable matter is ...

via microscale electrochemistry, and applied it to the development of novel approaches towards

artificial cell An artificial cell, synthetic cell or minimal cell is an engineered particle that mimics one or many functions of a biological cell. Often, artificial cells are biological or polymeric membranes which enclose biologically active materials. As such ...

s and DNA/RNA processing systems, including ''in vitro'' DNA/RNA processing systems, including Qß RNA, 3SR,

SDA SDA or sda may refer to: Science and technology Computing * /dev/sda, Device file#Naming conventions, the first mass-storage disk in Unix-like operating systems * T-Mobile SDA, a smartphone * Screen Design Aid, a utility program used by midrange ...

, 3SR-Predator-Prey , CATCH and optical DNA Computing systems based on magnetic beads in microfluidic reactors McCaskill led an international initiative to investigate evolvable artificial chemical cells with an EU-funded project
PACE
one of the earliest projects to explore a bottom-up approach to create an artificial living cell . Most recently his research has led to the development of novel autonomous and programmable electronic-chemical systems, leading other EU-funded projects
ECCell
an
MICREAgents
and opening a wide range of potential applications in basic and applied research. McCaskill's current work includes modeling the essential interplay of

self-organization Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order and disorder, order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spont ...

and

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

in life-like chemical and electronic systems, and exploring the potential of electronic-chemical hybrid

Information Technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

based on these properties. He has produced over 100 scientific publications, taught courses and supervised PhD theses in disciplines ranging from chemistry, physics and biology to computer science, and his multidisciplinary work straddling theory and experiment has been recognized in invited lectures at international conferences around the world. He was an inaugural director of the

European Centre for Living Technology European, or Europeans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe and other West ...

, and has since served on its science board. While McCaskill's main work is in basic science, it has helped spawn several start-up companies and continues to involve the coordination of major collaborative projects fostering novel links between science and industry.

References

External links

PACE
(Programmable Artificial Cell Evolution)

(Electronic Chemical Cell)

(Microscale Chemically Reactive Agents)
J. McCaskill BioMIP page

European Centre for Living Technology
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCaskill, John 1957 births Living people Academic staff of Ruhr University Bochum 21st-century Australian chemists Australian expatriates in the United States Academic staff of the University of Jena Australian expatriates in Germany Alumni of New College, Oxford University of Sydney alumni Australian Rhodes Scholars Academic staff of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice Australian expatriates in Italy Researchers of artificial life