It took quite a long time to complete this book. More than 20 years had elapsed since I wrote
my last volume as an author, not just as an editor. And I felt it important to find again the …

Autocatalytic cycles are rather widespread in nature and in several theoretical models of
catalytic reaction networks their emergence is hypothesized to be inevitable when the …

The growth of a population of protocells requires that the two key processes of replication of
the protogenetic material and reproduction of the whole protocell take place at the same …

The conditions that allow for the sustained growth of a protocell population are investigated
in the case of asymmetrical division. The results are compared to those of previous studies …

A general numerical methodology for parametric sensitivity analysis is proposed, which
allows to determine the parameters exerting the greatest influence on the output of a …

We consider generic protocells models allowing linear and non-linear kinetics for the main
involved chemical reactions. We are interested in understanding if and how the protocell …

It is argued that no law entails the evolution of the biosphere. Biological evolution rests on
both quantum random and classical non-random natural selection and whole-part …

Theoretical investigations of autocatalytic sets rendered the occurrence of self-sustaining
sets of molecules to be a generic property of random reaction networks. This stands in some …

In this paper a new model of growing and dividing protocells is described, whose main
features are (i) an autocatalytic set of “genetic memory molecules”(GMMs) whose reactions …

Protocells should be similar to present-day biological cells, but much simpler. They are
believed to have played a key role in the origin of life, and they may also be the basis of a …