INTRODUCTION Although hundreds of organic reactions have been validated under
consensus prebiotic conditions, we still have only a fragmentary understanding of how these …

Liquid formamide has been irradiated by high-energy proton beams in the presence of
powdered meteorites, and the products of the catalyzed resulting syntheses were analyzed …

The exclusive presence of β-D-ribofuranose in nucleic acids is still a conundrum in prebiotic
chemistry, given that pyranose species are substantially more stable at equilibrium …

New, improved methods to access nucleosides are of general interest not only to organic
chemists but to the greater scientific community as a whole due their key implications in life …

Quantum mechanical calculations are used to explore the thermodynamics of possible
prebiotic synthesis of the building blocks of nucleic acids. Different combinations of D …

Understanding ribose reactivity is a crucial step in the “RNA world” scenario because this
molecule is a component of all extant nucleotides that make up RNA. In solution, ribose is …

This thesis addresses fundamental questions related to the prebiotic evolutionary selection
of the building blocks of nucleic acids. The structural tendencies and propensities in today's …