Join us on February 7th, 2026 for cocktail hour, dinner, science quiz (with prizes!), and a presentation by Distinguished Professor J. Peter Gogarten at
the 18th Annual Darwin Day Dinner
A Celebration of Curiosity, Science, and Scientists
In the final paragraph of The Origin of Species, Darwin contemplates a bank of land and all of the differing life forms that dwell on that bank—plants, birds, worms, etc. All of these various life forms were produced by the same set of natural laws. While the life forms are widely different from each other, they are also “dependent on each other in so complex a manner.” Dr. Gogarten will discuss the symbiotic relationships and genetic exchange between widely varying organisms.
Dr. Johann Peter Gogarten is a German-American biologist studying the early evolution of life. Born in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, he studied plant phys-iology and membrane transport at the Universities of Tübingen and Giessen. In 1987 he moved to the US as a postdoc to work at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He currently is Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT.
Gogarten was the first person to root the Tree of life (biology) using an ancient gene duplication. Gogarten’s current focus is the evolution of homing endonuclease utilizing parasitic genetic elements (inteins) and the intertwining of selection occurring on the gene, population and the community level .
His interests are the early evolution of life, horizontal gene transfer and selfish genetic elements. Research in the Gogarten Lab at UCONN has been funded through the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Israel-US Binational Science Foundation (BSF), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Exobiology program. He is best known for rooting the tree of life and for his early recognition of horizontal gene transfer as an im-portant force in microbial evolution. Currently, a focus of his research is comparative genomics and horizontal gene transfer. He is also interested in the evolution of molecular parasites.
J. Peter Gogarten is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, a member of the CT Academy of Science and Engineering, and was selected as a recipient of a 2009 Fulbright scholarship.
Date: Saturday, Feb 7, 2026
Time: 5 pm Cocktail Hour, 6pm Dinner
At: The Waters Edge at Giovanni’s
2748 Boston Post Road, Darien, CT 06820
Price: $79 per person, $90 after January 16