Prof. Nathalie Katsonis, Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Nanoscale Pathways to the Origin of Life

Section A: The focus of the talk is to explore plausible chemical pathways for the formation of lipids in the prebiotic ocean. The emergence of such lipids would have enabled fundamental life-like functions, including compartmentalization, active molecular recruitment in self-assembled vesicles, and enzyme-free RNA replication in stabilized water droplets.

Section B: Research on prebiotic chemistry has so far concentrated on aqueous, homogeneous environments, successfully demonstrating that short RNA strands could plausibly have existed in the late Hadean ocean. These molecules are thought to have accumulated within self-assembled microscopic compartments known as protocells. While lipid self-assembly is widely accepted as the driving force behind protocell formation, the chemical origins of these lipids remain unresolved.

I will present evidence that primitive lipids, specifically fatty acids, could have formed through catalytic photo-oxidation of hydrocarbons present in oil slicks covering the early ocean. Once formed, these fatty acids would have stabilized water droplets at the oil–water interface, and the emergence of Marangoni flows would have conferred chemotactic motility to these droplets. I will further show how variations in the salt composition of the droplets modulate their swimming velocity.

Finally, I will discuss how such motile, lipid-stabilized droplets could have facilitated key processes at the origin of life, including the formation of larger vesicles, the active recruitment and concentration of small molecules, and enzyme-free RNA replication within protocell-like compartments.

Section C: Understanding the reactivity and dynamic behaviour of lipids in prebiotically plausible, heterogeneous environments sheds light on fundamental nanoscale processes. These insights inform the design of artificial cells and organelles, advance our understanding of active soft matter, and may ultimately enable the harnessing of these fundamental mechanisms for future therapeutic applications.