Protein Chirality and the Origin of Life
Navn på bevillingshaver
Birthe Brandt Kragelund
Titel
Professor
Institution
University of Copenhagen
Beløb
DKK 18,601,874
År
2024
Bevillingstype
Semper Ardens: Advance
Hvad?
One big unanswered scientific question concerns the Origin of Life. All known life-forms share fundamental biochemical features, implicating a Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). This ~4 billion years old organism was already a complex cell, akin to bacteria, but it is unknown how LUCA appeared. We will use proteins to go beyond LUCA to understand the chemistry that sparked life.
Hvorfor?
Pre-LUCA life likely consisted of protein coacervates-concentrated protein molecules made of amino acids, which exist in two versions that are each other’s mirror images. Earth contained equal amounts of both, but from LUCA and on, life used only one. We hypothesise that proteins at pre-LUCA time were made from a mixture of these mirror images, and that Life could only originate from pure states.
Hvordan?
We will produce proteins made of amino acids known to have existed on Earth before life and create conditions likely to have existed then. We ask if and how protein coacervates consisting of both images or only of one, differ physically and chemically. Based on experiments never done before, we will attempt the creation of chemical systems exhibiting the hallmarks of life.