The goal of the conference is to bring together the interdisciplinary community required to address the challenging and fundamental questions that have fascinated and intrigue scientists, philosophers and the general public alike since antiquity:

• Where, when and how did life emerge and evolve on Earth?
• What are the conditions under which life can exist?
• Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe and, if it does, how can it be detected and studied?

These questions belong to the discipline of Astrobiology. It is a new interdisciplinary emerging field encompassing the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the Universe, and it is intimately connected to the emergence of life on the early Earth. Our meeting will bring together experts from various fields:

• Astronomers investigating the formation and evolution of stellar systems hosting potentially habitable planets,
• Astrochemists studying the formation of complex molecules of prebiotic interest in extraterrestrial environments,
• Planetologists investigating the habitability of planets and their moons,
• Space scientists and engineers preparing missions to Solar System planets and developing technology for remote sensing of biomarkers on exoplanets,
• Geologists studying how the early Earth formed and evolved into a habitable planet,
• Chemists studying the transition from abiotic organic chemistry to biochemistry,
• Paleontologists investigating the first traces of life,
• Biologists investigating the extent and limits of biological diversity on Earth and how life emerged, evolved and diversified in early times,
• Philosophers and historians of science exploring the origins of life to answer the central question : « what is life » ?

ICISE in Quy Nhon (Vietnam) is a perfect meeting point for scientists and students from Europe, the Americas, Australia, Japan, China and South-East Asia. Given the diversity of the participants, emphasis will be given to introductory and review talks, and room will be kept for discussions between participants coming from different horizons.