54 research outputs found

    Twenty years of "Lipid World": a fertile partnership with David Deamer

    Get PDF
    "The Lipid World" was published in 2001, stemming from a highly effective collaboration with David Deamer during a sabbatical year 20 years ago at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The present review paper highlights the benefits of this scientific interaction and assesses the impact of the lipid world paper on the present understanding of the possible roles of amphiphiles and their assemblies in the origin of life. The lipid world is defined as a putative stage in the progression towards life's origin, during which diverse amphiphiles or other spontaneously aggregating small molecules could have concurrently played multiple key roles, including compartment formation, the appearance of mutually catalytic networks, molecular information processing, and the rise of collective self-reproduction and compositional inheritance. This review brings back into a broader perspective some key points originally made in the lipid world paper, stressing the distinction between the widely accepted role of lipids in forming compartments and their expanded capacities as delineated above. In the light of recent advancements, we discussed the topical relevance of the lipid worldview as an alternative to broadly accepted scenarios, and the need for further experimental and computer-based validation of the feasibility and implications of the individual attributes of this point of view. Finally, we point to possible avenues for exploring transition paths from small molecule-based noncovalent structures to more complex biopolymer-containing proto-cellular systems.711473 - Minerva Foundation; 80NSSC17K0295, 80NSSC17K0296, 1724150 - National Science FoundationPublished versio

    Beyond prebiotic chemistry

    Get PDF
    Summary: How can matter transition from the nonliving to the living state? The answer is essential for understanding the origin of life on Earth and for identifying promising targets in the search for life on other planets. Most studies have focused on the likely chemistry of RNA (1), protein (2), lipid, or metabolic “worlds” (3) and autocatalytic sets (4), including attempts to make life in the lab. But these efforts may be too narrowly focused on the biochemistry of life as we know it today. A radical rethink is necessary, one that explores not just plausible chemical scenarios but also new physical processes and driving forces. Such investigations could lead to a physical understanding not only of the origin of life but also of life itself, as well as to new tools for designing artificial biology

    Origin of life from a maker's perspective -- focus on protocellular compartments in bottom-up synthetic biology

    Full text link
    The origin of life is shrouded in mystery, with few surviving clues, obscured by evolutionary competition. Previous reviews have touched on the complementary approaches of top-down and bottom-up synthetic biology to augment our understanding of living systems. Here we point out the synergies between these fields, especially between bottom-up synthetic biology and origin of life research. We explore recent progress made in artificial cell compartmentation in line with the crowded cell, its metabolism, as well as cycles of growth and division, and how those efforts are starting to be combined. Though the complexity of current life is among its most striking characteristics, none of life's essential features require it, and they are unlikely to have emerged thus complex from the beginning. Rather than recovering the one true origin lost in time, current research converges towards reproducing the emergence of minimal life, by teasing out how complexity and evolution may arise from a set of essential components.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

    Basic Cell and Molecular Biology 5e: What We Know and How We Find Out

    Get PDF
    https://dc.uwm.edu/biosci_facbooks_bergtrom/1014/thumbnail.jp

    Annotated Cell and Molecular Biology 5e: What We Know and How We Found Out

    Get PDF
    https://dc.uwm.edu/biosci_facbooks_bergtrom/1013/thumbnail.jp

    The Therapeutic Implications of Muscular Dystrophy Genomics

    Get PDF
    With an introduction by Professor Jan Witkowski, this Witness Seminar transcript presents an account of the therapeutic implications of muscular dystrophy genomics. The participants provide insights into the clinical and genetic characterizations of muscular dystrophy, with a particular emphasis on Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and shed light on the research coordination and the recent approaches towards the treatment of this group of devastating pathological entities

    Becoming Trapped: An Inquiry into Life, History, and Human Nature

    Get PDF
    Masteroppgave i økologisk økonomi (MBA) - Nord universitet 201
    • …
    corecore