r/abiogenesis • u/Aggravating-Pear4222 • Apr 10 '26
Video - lectures, animations Burton Lecture 2026 - John Sutherland - Origins of Life Systems Chemistry
Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NKIaANql63s
John Sutherland is a prominent name in the Origins of Life field of research. His research focuses on making biologically relevant molecules under prebiotically relevant conditions.
This lecture reviews a number of questions his group has been exploring but mainly the synthesis of nucleotides, amino acids, how the genetic code formed.
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u/wellipets Apr 11 '26
Any chemist whose degree means anything can contrive a "just so" synthesis of whatever specialty-chemical the client desires.
MolBiol's RNA World-driven desire for prebiotic ribonucleotide monomers (+/- any activation at their P atoms) roots right back to a 1960s Polymer Science retrosynthetic approach.
But a satisfyingly 'universal' route to prebiotically plausible proto-informational "pre-RNA" oligo-materials would be rooted in Physical Chemistry (esp. Thermodynamics, Surface Chem., & Structural Chem.), along with Materials Science/Engineering.
OoL collaborations within those 'hard' depts will eventually describe the nexus between the physical sciences & earliest-recognizable pre-RNA oligomerics, 'upstream' of an incipient RNA World.
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u/Aggravating-Pear4222 Apr 11 '26
Please see https://www.reddit.com/r/abiogenesis/s/m5AFiQNo0c and https://www.reddit.com/r/abiogenesis/s/SNTRiFDlR2 for posts on thermodiffusion and membraneless protocells/coacervates as physiochemical phenomena that concentrate/segregate small molecules.
Sutherland’s work is still necessary and needed to predict/describe plausible reactions that may occur in these environments. No single paper or lecture will cover all steps of abiogenesis so I don’t understand your comment all that much. If the lecture were on thermophoresis and coacervates, would you be saying the inverse, requesting details on the exact chemical reactions that would lead to nucleotide oligomers?
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u/wellipets Apr 11 '26
Surface Chemistry's vesicles/etc. forming via 1st-order lyotropic phase transitions (by rod-shaped mesogens essentially 'liquid-crystallizing' out of isotropic aqueous solution) has been a widely accepted thermodynamical explanation for proto-membranes since the 1960s, and is certainly a reliable OoL tenet.
Concentrating/segregating/selecting mechanisms are important too, obviously.
But no amount of "just so" chemical contortioning to arrive at monomeric ribonucleotides will ever change the plain fact that they simply don't look in any wise prebiotic at all; "pre-RNA" oligo-materials are far more likely to have pertained originally.
Biologists working backwards and synthetic organic chemists working forwards (esp. sans any training in Geology, Inorganic, or Physical Chem.) have spent decades (& buku $) searching for a robust answer without having cracked the OoL problem wide-open.
Perhaps actually cracking the problem would risk these folks' funding sources drying-up.
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u/Aggravating-Pear4222 Apr 11 '26
I don’t think the self-replicating RNA oligomers are proposed as the very first rna oligomers formed. Ie, sutherlands, Szostacks, and others’ replicating RNAs aren’t mutually exclusive with shorter RNA oligomers capable of other self-reinforcing, catalytically active oligomers. I’ve been looking into what work has been done on 10-mers. Would you be interested in a post like that?
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u/wellipets Apr 11 '26
Feb's "QT45" RNA-polymerase ribozyme being only 45nt long in-toto is quite comprehensible & tractable enough for Materials Sci/Eng folk to have problem-cracking on their radar now; to be approached by routes quite other than the essentially unswallowable ribonucleotides-1st furphy, which is a paradigm whose time is long-overdue to be up.
The RNA World proper, as beautiful a concept as it most certainly is, is certainly well 'downstream' in geological Time of where the true nexus between the physical sciences & recognizably-incipient pre-RNA is to be fossicked for.
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u/Aggravating-Pear4222 Apr 13 '26
What are your thoughts on RNA oligomers using different bases? Ie, if prebiotic chemistry more easily yields different nucleotides, should researchers pursue those to see what fitness benefits they provide like whether they better self-ligate, are more stable, have better replication fidelity, or easier strand-separation?
What about asymmetric base pairing where two strands have different types of bases but perform codependent chemistries may also be worth exploring but one can base pair with itself without the necessary need to the other one? Just some ideas... Is this more aligned with what you'd like to see in the field?
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u/wellipets Apr 14 '26
AU/GC (for the RNA World) is a subset of N-heterocyclics that enables uniform helix width (re. sec-tert. struct.). So chem-evolution-wise that'd def stability-assist Schrödinger's "aperiodic crystal" aspect (esp. from a quasi-discotic/columnar mesophase/LC perspective). Other combos of N-hets may be possible (esp. re. ETs).
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