The Krishnamurthy Lab
April 2023
Sugar, spice and the origin of life: new theory for the first sugars
A new theory upsets formaldehyde as the precursor to sugars.
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June 2022
June 2022
Building Blocks of RNA and DNA Could Have Appeared Together Before Life Began on Earth
Un poison à l’origine de la vie sur Terre?
A poison at the origin of life on Earth?
April 2022
March 2022
03/26/2022
Feb 2022
New role for cyanide in early Earth and search for extraterrestrial life
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-021-00883-z
Dec 2021
Life on the Earth May have arisen from a mixture of RNA and DNA
Nov 2021
New advance in modeling the chemistry of the origin of life
Study demonstrates a closely related set of chemical reactions that could have supported the development of early life forms.
May 2021
And the reaction to chimeric RNA-DNA research from our lab continues, this time with an in-depth and thoughtful discussion by a Russian Science News Magazine called ELEMENTS.asking the question
Do Chimeras Threaten the RNA World Hypothesis?
Here is the Google Translated Web Page link
March 2021
Reaction from Colorado University (Boulder) about RDNA chimeras .....
Read the whole issue here (PDF)
Januaray 2021
Read article in English translation
December 2020
Discovery boosts theory that life on Earth arose from RNA-DNA mix
Newly described chemical reaction could have assembled DNA building blocks before life forms and their enzymes existed.
November 16, 2020
October 22, 2020
October 19, 2020
October 15, 2020
October 13, 2020
October 12, 2020
A plausible metal-free ancestral analogue of the Krebs cycle composed entirely of α-ketoacids
On the early Earth, a forerunner of the complex cycle of reactions that underpins metabolism in today’s cells might have originated from interactions between just two simple, versatile molecules in water, according to new research. Read more by John Rennie in Quantamagazine
Origin-of-life chemists discover plausible ancestor of essential metabolic process used by most plants and animals
Read the commentary
Cyclophospholipids Increase Protocellular Stability to Metal Ions
The role of sugar-backbone heterogeneity and chimeras in the simultaneous emergence of RNA and DNA
Nuevas investigaciones
Buscan descifrar los mecanismos extraterrestres que iniciaron la vida en la Tierra
RNA-DNA Chimeras Might Have Supported the Origin of Life on Earth
A new study finds mixtures of nucleotide types, rather than pure systems, are more likely to yield the building blocks of life.
Jef Akst
Researchers suggest RNA and DNA got their start from RNA-DNA chimeras
Life’s Origins in a Mixed-Up World
New research shows that RNA and DNA could have originated simultaneously, raising new questions about the RNA World hypothesis.
by Aaron Gronstal
All shook up: Researchers mix RNA and DNA to study how life’s process began billions of years ago
Origin-of-Life Study Points to Chemical Chimeras, Not RNA
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DAP phosphorylation chemistry featured in Japanese TV Cosmic Front Episode
NHK Cosmic Front "The Planet Hunters"
Watch the video at around 34 minutes where the work from our laboratory at Scripps Research is featured.
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The Plausibility of DAP on the Early Earth
Forming a molecule relevant to life's origins
New paper demonstrates plausible pathways for formation of life-critical chemicals
Image credit: James McKay
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Chemistry feat suggests the building blocks of DNA and RNA could have appeared together before life began on earth
Finding from Scripps Research and UK’s MRC weighs against popular “RNA World” hypothesis
April 01, 2019
More here .....
Prebiotic chemistry shows how DNA building blocks might have arisen at the origin of life
Read the MRC news release here ...
DNA: Biotic Invention, or Prebiotic Product?
Prebiotic synthesis reveals that DNA nucleosides may form just as readily as RNA in the absence of enzymes, and therefore could have existed alongside RNA before the origin of life. Behind the paper By Nick Green
DNA And RNA Might Have Developed Together, Challenging Assumptions About The Origins Of Life
By Alfredo Carpineti
Nieuw puzzelstukje gevonden in de oersoep
Chemici vinden nieuwe route waarbij RNA en DNA ontstaan vanuit dezelfde bouwsteen
New puzzle piece found in the primordial soup -Chemists find a new route where RNA and DNA originate from the same building block
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NASA's new Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments (PCE3) Consortium will identify planetary conditions that might give rise to life's chemistry. Credit Rensselaer
Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy named co-leader of NASA program to study chemical origins of life
New NASA research consortium to tackle life's origins
NASA is uniting experts across multiple disciplines to investigate life's beginnings on our planet -- and to explore if and how life sprung up elsewhere in the universe
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Published and featured in Nature Communications: Early Earth collection
Latest chemistry lands on the cover of The Journal of Organic Chemistry
Georgia Tech researchers have expanded the synthetic value of the common building block dihydroxyfumaric acid (DHF). The diester derivative of DHF has been used exclusively as an electron-seeking (electrophilic) reagent in organic synthesis. Read More....
Strategies to Discover Life's Origins
A concept article discussing approaches to origins research
Backbones of Life's Origins
A recent study examines the potential role of pyrophosphate linkages in prebiotic chemistry and the origins of life.....
... and has been selected to be part of Hot Topic: RNA
Selectively Oxidizing Carbohydrates and Nucleosides
Carbohydrate chemistry is important to living organisms on Earth......
Endeavor Magazine, Spring 2018
Chemists discover plausible recipe for early life on Earth
See the video by Stated Clearly here
In the Top 10: Chemistry and Materials Science
Success in the lab
Birth Of Life: What Chemical Reactions Triggered First Organisms On Earth? By Suraj Radhakrishnan
Life on Earth Began With a Strange Change in Chemistry, New Theory Proposes By Kristin Hugo in NEWSWEEK
Indian-origin chemist discovers new recipe for early life
Scientists develop possible recipe for first life on Earth
Scientists uncover new chemical recipe for early life on Earth By Greg Beach in INHABITAT
Scientists Develop a New Theory for How Life Began on Earth By Neel V. Patel
Facebook Live Interview by Madeline McCurry-Schmidt
Science. Nouvelle hypothèse concernant les origines de la vie sur Terre
Par Jean-Paul Baquiast
US researchers may have solved one of chemistry and biology’s biggest chicken-or-egg conundrums. Joel F. Hooper reports.
Researchers close in on the reactions which fed the first life on Earth
Life Could Have Evolved From These Ancient Chemical Reactions
New theory demonstrates origin of life on Earth
Scientists Discover New Explanation For Origins Of Early Life On Earth
Where did we come from? Probably few questions are as challenging to scientists as this one. But Furman students working with chemistry professor Greg Springsteen may have come a step closer to understanding the beginnings of life on Earth.
Beckman Scholar Julia Nelson Publishes: Linked cycles of oxidative decarboxylation of glyoxylate as protometabolic analogs of the citric acid cycle
4 billion years ago, ancient Earth had the recipe for life: Life on Earth evolved since 4 billion years, finds study
By Poulami Nag
Chemists Propose Solution to Mystery of How Life Began on Violent Early Earth
Experiments in 'primordial' conditions (maybe) found chemical reactions that ape a key biological cycle and could exist under the extreme conditions of billions of years ago BY RUTH SCHUSTER
What I learnt last week 26: Life from Citrus......
Scienceandsf Paleontology News for January 2018
Scripps Research Institute Team of Chemists Discovers New Recipe for Early Life
Un cycle chimique inédit pourrait avoir produit les premières molécules du vivant
An unprecedented chemical cycle may have produced the first molecules of life on Earth
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Scientists Find Potential “Missing Link” in Chemistry That Led to Life on Earth
LA JOLLA, Calif. – Nov. 6, 2017 – Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth.More here .....
News Articles
Coverage in French Radio FRANCE CULTURE By Xavier Martinet et Zoé Sfez
Scientists Make Fantastic Discovery of the Missing Link That Helped Create Life on Earth By Andrew Alpin
The search for the ancient chemical origins of life has a new candidate — a multitasking enzyme that may have set the evolutionary ball rolling. By Dave Roos
Meet diamidophosphate. By MIKE MCRAE
Pre-Life Biochemistry: New Study May Have Discovered the Origin of Protein Synthesis. By Deirdre O’Donnell
Scientists think they've found primordial goop whence life first sprang. It also makes for great fertiliser. By Andrew Silver
Three Indian chemists help detect 'missing link' molecule By G.S. Mudur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcG4cu0eBZM
Phosphorus compound could have created three crucially vital components
’Missing link’ in origin of life on Earth found
Scripps Research May Have Found Compound Essential to Formation of Life on Earth. Posted by
"Missing Link" In Chemistry Could Explain The Origin Of Life On Earth. By Robin Andrews (IFLS)
Amazing discovery may hold key to the origins of life (in the NY Post) by Mike Wehner, BGR
Scientists Just Found a Vital Missing Link in The Origins of Life on Earth
We just got a better view of where we came from By Michael J Howard (in The Messenger)
New constituent “Missing Link” A mystery that explains the origin of life in earth
Scientists May Have Found the Chemical Compound That Started Life By Chelsea Gohd
Di come una molecola si candidi a catalizzatore della vita By Silvia Kuna Ballero (starts around 5:00 minutes)
Minkorrekt Folge 108 “Erklima was Thema war”Methodisch inkorrekt. Thema 1: “Wer hat in die Suppe gespuckt?” – Was war alles nötig damit aus der Ursuppe zufällig leben entsteht? Ehrlich gesagt erstaunlich viel…aber ging das eventuell auch mit weniger? Dieser Frage versucht das erste Paper auf den Grund zu gehen.
Phosphorus: You Can’t Have Life Without It, at Least on Earth: When searching for “carbon-based” life, we need to pay attention to other elements too. By Dirk Schulze-Makuch airspacemag.com
‘Fairy Godmother’ Molecule Might Be Key Element in the Origin of Life by Yasmin Tayag
Abiogeneis posts in the "Abiogenesis Hall of Fame"
In Mathrubhumi ഭൂമിയിലെ ജീവന്റെ ഉത്ഭവം ഇനിയൊരു കീറാമുട്ടി പ്രശ്നമല്ല!
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Was the Primordial Soup a Hearty Pre-Protein Stew?
The evolutionary path to first proteins may have been paved with relatively easy, small square-dance steps....
Read more here by Ben Brumfiled
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41570-017-0082
http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/s41570-017-0082
As to how the depsipeptide idea came about and progressed within the Center for Chemical Evolution ...read the background here
Cleaning Up the Clutter
How proto-biology arose from the prebiotic clutter.
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Holy Grails in Chemistry: Accounts of Chemical Research
Holy grails at Accounts
By
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RNA–DNA Chimeras in the Context of an RNA World Transition to an RNA/DNA World
Overview of attention for article published in Angewandte Chemie. International Edition, September 2016
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Nov. 10, 2016
Research Highlight
RNA-DNA Chimeras and the Transition to an RNA/DNA World
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When RNA and DNA Worlds Collide
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New Theory on Origin of Life on Earth Questions 'RNA World' Hypothesis
By Firman Akhsanu
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News from the Primordial World
TSRI Scientists Find Evidence for Alternate Theory of How Life Arose
By Madeline McCurry-Schmidt
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LA JOLLA, CA – September 28, 2016 – A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) offers a twist on a popular theory for how life on Earth began about four billion years ago.
It Takes 2: RNA–DNA Mashup May Have Kick-Started Life on Earth
New research shows each molecule needed the other one
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Missing Links Brewed in Primordial Puddles?
Missing Links Brewed in Primordial Puddles?
The crucibles that bore out early building blocks of life may have been, in many cases, modest puddles.
Now, researchers working with that hypothesis have achieved a significant advancement toward unlocking a longstanding evolutionary mystery -- how components of RNA and DNA formed from chemicals present on early Earth before life existed. It could also have implications on how astrobiologists view the probability of live elsewhere in the universe.
New Letters Added to the Genetic Alphabet
Scientists hope that new genetic letters, created in the lab, will endow DNA with new powers.
by Emily Singer
In their quest to understand the Origins of Life ....
Did life begin in a PUDDLE? First biological molecules may have formed in small pools as they dried out on early Earth
- Study found repeated drying and wetting cycles led polypeptides to form
- Polypeptides form proteins when long enough - a key part of living cells
- Researchers found they could form from basic chemical building blocks
- The findings support theories that life began on land four billion years ago
Finding the Origins of Life in a Drying Puddle
A Possible Explanation For The Origins of Peptides On Earth
Steps Toward Making Nucleosides
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Have you ever wondered how life first got started on Earth?
So do scientists! Though the question has not yet been fully answered, a careful study of Chemical Evolution is beginning to shed light on this mystery.
Watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRzxTzKIsp8
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Origins of life, a Few Comments and an Update
by Sandra Pizzarello, President of ISSOL
in Origins of Life, Astrobiology Focus Group
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NAI December 23, 2014 Newsletter
RNA as an Emergent Entity: An Understanding Gained Through Studying its Nonfunctional Alternatives
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The Structure and Nonfunction of RNA
By Aaron L. Gronstal - Dec 17, 2014
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Nucleic Acid Chemistry - Thematic Series
Editorial by Prof. Hans-Achim Wagenknecht
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Microwave Phoshpitylation selected for F1000prime (Faculty of 1000)
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SIMONS COLLABORATION ON THE ORIGINS OF LIFE
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Stanley Miller's forgotten experiments, analyzed
Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Vials contain samples of prebiotic materials created by
Stanley Miller in 1958, labeled by Miller himself. Miller added a potential prebiotic condensation agent, cyanamide,
during the course of the experiment. Cyanamide has been suggested to induce polymerization of amino acid into
simple peptides which is an important set in chemical evolution and possibly the origin of life. For unknown reasons,
Miller had never analyzed the samples. In a paper published in 2014, researchers at Georgia Tech and Scripps
Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego analyzed the samples and established the potential importance of
reagents - substances that cause chemical reactions such as cyanamide -- in the origin of life on Earth.
Stanley Miller, the chemist whose landmark experiment published in 1953 showed how some of the molecules of life could have formed on a young Earth, left behind boxes of experimental samples that he never analyzed. The first-ever analysis of some of Miller's old samples has revealed another way that important molecules could have formed on early Earth.
Miller’s forgotten experiments point to primitive protein genesis
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Protecting Self-Replicating RNA?
The Life Force
Synthetic primordial cell copies RNA for the first time
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Prebiotic Chemistry: Researchers discover a potential prebiotic reaction that can form tartrates, providing another possible entry point to an early citric acid cycle
By Melissae Fellet
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Accounts of Chemical Research - Special Issue
Origins of Chemical Evolution
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Nature | News Feature
Life-changing experiments: The biological Higgs
Biologists ponder what fundamental discoveries might match the excitement of the Higgs boson.
http://www.nature.com/news/life-changing-experiments-the-biological-higgs-1.10310
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Nature | News
Enzymes grow artificial DNA
Synthetic strands with different backbones replicate and evolve just like the real thing.
http://www.nature.com/news/enzymes-grow-artificial-dna-1.10487
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Discovery of DNA Structure and Function: Watson and Crick
The landmark ideas of Watson and Crick relied heavily on the work of other scientists. What did the duo actually discover?
By: Leslie A. Pray, Ph.D. © 2008 Nature Education
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DNA's New Alphabets
DNA has been around for billions of years — but that doesn't mean scientists can't make it better.
Nature 491, 516–518 () doi:10.1038/491516a
by Roberta Kwok who is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
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Chemical & Engineering News, 2012-01-27
On The Origin Of Sugars
Prebiotic Chemistry: Experiments reveal a possible path to forming the sugar in RNA
By Mellisae Fellet
Startin’ Somethin’: Dihydroxyfumarate reacts with simple aldehydes to make molecules that could have formed the basis for life.
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Scripps Research Team Proves Plausibility of New Primordial Pathway to Life’s Chemical Building Blocks
Alternative Pathway Could Change the Field of Pre-life Chemistry
A New Pathway to Life's Origin
Sugar and the Origin of Life
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Alternate Prebiotic Route to Sugars
in ACS Chemical Biology - Spotlight March 16, 2012 , Volume 7, Issue 3, Pages 421-614
By Sarah A. Webb, Ph.D.
Researchers have struggled to uncover the chemical mechanisms that could have converted an abiotic “primordial soup” into building blocks of biopolymers. In examining the formation of carbohydrates from fundamental components such as water and carbon dioxide, researchers initially proposed the formose reaction that converts formaldehyde to a mixture of aldoses and ketoses in a series of steps.
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JACS Image Challenge
Challenge #184
The article reported experimental investigations on the reactions of dihydroxyfumarate with small molecule aldehydes (glyoxylate, glycolaldehyde, and glyceraldehyde). Which pathway actually accounts for the formation of a mixture of diastereomers of pentulosonic acid 3a+3b from glyoxylate?
For the answer see http://pubs.acs.org/JACSbeta/challenge/index.html challenge # 184
For the original paper see
Exploratory Experiments on the Chemistry of the "Glyoxylate Scenario": Formation of Ketosugars from Dihydroxyfumarate. Sagi, V.N.; Punna, V.; Hu, F.; Meher, G.; Krishnamurthy, R. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, pp 3577–3589
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A Stitch in Time
By Mark Schrope
Origin Of Life: The Search For The First Genetic Material
Looking Beyond the RNA Structural Neighborhood for Potentially Primordial Genetic Systems
By John Sutherland
For the original papers see
Mapping the Landscape of Potentially Primordial Informational Oligomers: Oligo-Dipeptides Tagged with 2,4-Disubstituted 5-amino-pyrimidines as Recognition Elements. Mittapalli, G.K.; Osornio, Y.M.; Guerrero, M.A.; Ravinder, K.R.; Krishnamurthy, R.; Eschenmoser, A. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2007, 46, 2478-2484.
Mapping the Landscape of Potentially Primordial Informational Oligomers: Oligo-dipeptides and Oligo-dipeptoids Tagged with Triazines as Recognition Elements. Mittapalli, G.K.; Ravinder, K.R.; Xiong, H.; Munoz, O.; Han, B.; De Riccardis, De F.; Krishnamurthy, R.; Eschenmoser, A. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2007, 46, 2470-2477.
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TNA World
by Shige Abe
DNA is the building block for life on Earth. But it is a highly complex molecule, and could not have arranged itself spontaneously. What did it develop from? Astrobiologists examine possible ancestors of DNA: nucleic acids called PNA, p-RNA, and TNA.
For the full article see this link
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