The complexity of even the simplest known life forms makes efforts to synthesize living cells
from inanimate components seem like a daunting task. However, recent progress toward the …

Understanding how life arose is a fundamental problem of biology. Much progress has been
made by adopting a synthetic and mechanistic perspective on originating life. We present a …

Achieving efficient nonenzymatic replication of RNA is an important step toward the
synthesis of self-replicating protocells that may mimic early forms of life. Despite recent …

The origin of life is believed to have progressed through an RNA world, in which RNA acted
as both genetic material and functional molecules. The structure of the evolutionary fitness …

Darwinian evolution requires a mechanism for generation of diversity in a population, and
selective differences between individuals that influence reproduction. In biology, diversity is …

The nonenzymatic replication of RNA oligonucleotides is thought to have played a key role
in the origin of life prior to the evolution of ribozyme-catalyzed RNA replication. Although the …

The emergence of evermore complex entities from prebiotic building blocks is a key aspect
of origins of life research. The RNA-world hypothesis posits that RNA oligomers known as …

A long-standing problem for the origins of life is that polymerization of many biopolymers,
including nucleic acids and peptides, is thermodynamically unfavourable in aqueous …

The emergence of functional cooperation between the three main classes of biomolecules–
nucleic acids, peptides and lipids–defines life at the molecular level. However, how such …

The origin of life on Earth is one of the most fascinating questions of contemporary science.
Extensive research in the past decades furnished diverse experimental proposals for the …