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Project Progress

Self-Reproducing (GL) Molecular Systems and Darwinian Chemistry (dm)

Ghadiri’s laboratory investigates the importance of Molecular Darwinistic processes in the origins of life by exploiting catalytic and self-reproducing (autocatalytic) polypeptide constructs. The goal of our research program is to design, discover, and understand the primary factors responsible for directing self-organization of inanimate molecules into the animate chemistry of living systems. Our approach has been to rationally design and recreate various forms of autocatalytic peptide networks in the laboratory and study how the interplay of molecular information and nonlinear catalysis can lead to self-organization and expression of emergent properties. Our laboratory in the past year have completed studies on: (1) the design of An Exponential Replicator, fulfilling the structural and kinetic requirements for the onset of Darwinian evolution; (2) established the Emergence of a Peptide Replicator in High Salt, highlighting the effects of environmental factors on template-directed catalysis; (3) disclosed the first example of A Chiroselective Peptide Self-Replication, addressing the important issue of origin of homochirality in terrestrial proteins; (4) characterized A Reciprocal Autocatalytic Peptide Network, illustrating how self-reproduction can emerge out of mutually autocatalytic set of chemical reactions; and (5) designed and characterized A Parasitic Peptide Network, demonstrating the emergence of host-parasite relationship among similar molecular species.