Droplet-based microfluidic systems generate, manipulate and control sub-microlitre droplets
enclosed within an immiscible carrier fluid. Owing to a number of remarkable features, such …

Isothermal autocatalytic DNA circuits have been proven to be versatile and powerful
biocomputing platforms by virtue of their self-sustainable and self-accelerating reaction …

How life emerged from inanimate matter is one of the most intriguing questions posed to
modern science. Central to this research are experimental attempts to build systems capable …

An RNA ligase ribozyme that catalyzes the joining of RNA molecules of the opposite chiral
handedness was optimized for the ability to synthesize its own enantiomer from two …

The question of the origin of life is a tenacious question that challenges many branches of
science but is also extremely multifaceted. While prebiotic chemistry and micropaleontology …

Robust localization of self-reproducing autocatalytic chemistries is a key step in the
realization of heritable and evolvable chemical systems. While autocatalytic chemical …

Understanding the emergence of life from (primitive) abiotic components has arguably been
one of the deepest and yet one of the most elusive scientific questions. Notwithstanding the …

The difficulty of designing simple autocatalysts that grow exponentially in the absence of
enzymes, external drives or ingenious internal mechanisms severely constrains scenarios …

This year we celebrated Stuart Kauffman's 80th birthday. Kauffman has contributed many
original ideas to science. One of them is that of autocatalytic sets in the context of the origin …

In this chapter we offer a critical analysis of organizational models about the process of
origins of life and, thereby, a reflection about life itself (understood in a general, minimal …