LIFE: Early Cells to Multicellularity is a NASA Research Coordination Network dedicated to understanding life from early cells to multicellularity. The network brings together astrobiologists who seek the story of life’s earliest innovations, and how their consequences might be detected from afar.
Research performed by the members of LIFE address the questions:
1. Origins of life to Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA)
What environmental pressures and evolutionary opportunities gave rise to LUCA?
2. LUCA to a planetary biosphere
What environmental pressures and evolutionary opportunities caused life to expand to planetary scale?
3. LUCA to Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA):
What environmental pressures and evolutionary opportunities brought about compartmentalization of function within cells?
4. Single cells to differentiated multicellularity
What environmental pressures and evolutionary opportunities gave rise to cellular differentiation, connectivity, and cooperation?
Click here to view peer reviewed scientific publications from members of LIFE
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