The origin of life is still one of humankind's great mysteries. At the transition between
nonliving and living matter, protocells, initially featureless aggregates of abiotic matter, gain …

A major goal of synthetic biology is to understand the transition between non-living matter
and life. The bottom-up development of an artificial cell would provide a minimal system with …

Two processes required for life's origin are condensation reactions that produce essential
biopolymers by a nonenzymatic reaction, and self-assembly of membranous compartments …

There is a general assumption that amphiphilic compounds, such as fatty acids, readily form
membranous vesicles when dispersed in aqueous phases. However, from earlier studies, it …

The subduction of seamounts and ridge features at convergent plate boundaries plays an
important role in the deformation of the overriding plate and influences geochemical cycling …

Wet-dry cycling on the early Earth is thought to have facilitated production of molecular
building blocks of life, but its impact on self-assembly and compartmentalization remains …

Dynamic interplay between peptide synthesis and membrane assembly would have been
crucial for the emergence of protocells on the prebiotic Earth. However, the effect of …

Publications related to the origin of life are mostly products of laboratory research and have
the tacit assumption that the same reactions would have been possible on the early Earth …

The prebiotic emergence of protocells is an important part of any origins of life scenario.
Although fatty-acid-based vesicles are well studied, how they transitioned to phospholipid …

Abstract Model protocells have long been constructed with fatty acids, because these lipids
are prebiotically plausible and can, at least theoretically, support a protocell life cycle …