Steps towards de-novo life
| PhD ceremony: | Mr G. (Guillermo) Monreal Santiago |
| When: | May 15, 2020 |
| Start: | 11:00 |
| Supervisors: | prof. dr. S. (Sijbren) Otto, prof. dr. R.C. (Ryan) Chiechi |
| Where: | Academy building RUG / Student Information & Administration |
| Faculty: | Science and Engineering |
Making artificial (“de-novo”) life from completely synthetic molecules is a challenging endeavour that could help us understand life, detect it, and gain some insight on its origins. The aim of this thesis is to combine in a single system several properties that are fundamental to living systems – specifically self-replication, compartmentalization, and metabolism.
This work is based on self-replicating fibres that emerge from a dynamic combinatorial library. Through the thesis, we study their self-replication mechanism using HS-AFM, use complex coacervates to compartmentalize them, and combine them with photocatalytic cofactors to obtain the first synthetic example of a light-driven protometabolism. Finally, we combine this protometabolic feedback loop with out-of-equilibrium conditions to design a synthetic oscillator.
The results shown here are first steps towards the synthesis of de-novo life, and can lead in the future to more complex processes such as ecological relationships or Darwinian evolution.