Living and proliferating cells undergo repeated cycles of growth, replication and division, all
orchestrated by complex molecular networks. How a minimal cell cycle emerged and helped …

Primitive life must have possessed the essential features of modern cellular life, but without
highly evolved proteins to perform dynamic functions such as nutrient transport and …

The membranes of the first protocells on the early Earth were likely self-assembled from fatty
acids. A major challenge in understanding how protocells could have arisen and withstood …

Nonenzymatic template-directed RNA copying requires catalysis by divalent metal ions. The
primer extension reaction involves the attack of the primer 3′-hydroxyl on the adjacent …

Although the habitability of early Mars is now well established, its suitability for conditions
favorable to an independent origin of life (OoL) has been less certain. With continued …

Efficiently copying mixed-sequence oligonucleotide templates nonenzymatically is a long-
standing problem both with respect to the origin of life, and with regard to bottom up efforts to …

Evolutionary theory suggests that the origin, persistence, and evolution of biology is driven
by the “natural selection” of characteristics improving the differential reproductive success of …

A key characteristic of living systems is the storage and replication of information, and as
such the development of self‐replicating systems capable of heredity is of great importance …

The origin of life likely occurred within environments that concentrated cellular precursors
and enabled their co-assembly into cells. Soda lakes (those dominated by Na+ ions and …

Many of the fundamental molecules of life share extraordinary pigment-like optical
properties in the long-wavelength UV-C spectral region. These include strong photon …