Seminarium Fizyki Ciała Stałego

The question of the origins of life ignited imagination of the mankind since the dawn of its existence. It would be difficult to outline all the scientific hypotheses that were proposed regarding the abiotic synthetic routes that led to the formation of the first single-cellular organisms about 3.8 Gy ago. However, recently there is growing evidence that all the building blocks of a protocell could form in a very similar system chemistries. The scenario proposed by Sutherland and Szostak [1, 2] involves streams flowing down the slopes of an impact crater, leaching metals and prebiotic feedstock molecules like cyanides under intense ultraviolet radiation. The latter seems to be crucial and leads to interesting photochemical transformations, necessary to produce nucleotides, aminoacids, simple sugars and lipids – all that is required to form a protocell. In this contribution an overview of the selected key steps of these reactions, as elucidated by ab initio quantum chemical calculations [3, 4, 5], shall be discussed.References1. J.D. Sutherland, Nature Reviews Chemistry, 1, 0012 (2017)2. J.W. Szostak, Molecular Frontiers Journal, 1, 1 (2017)3. J. Xu, V. Chmela, N.J. Green, D.A. Russell, M.J. Janicki, R.W. Góra, R. Szabla, A.D. Bond, J.D. Sutherland, Nature, 582, 60 (2020)4. M.J. Janicki, S.J. Roberts, J. Šponer, M.W. Powner, R.W. Góra, R. Szabla, Chem. Commun., 54, 13407 (2018)5. J. Xu, M. Tsanakopoulou, C.J. Magnani, R. Szabla, J.E. Šponer, J. Šponer, R.W. Góra, J.D. Sutherland, Nat. Chem., 9, 303 (2017)UwagaSeminarium w trybie HybrydowymFaculty of Physics room 0.06link to remote mode: https://zoom.us/j/7218838148szczegóły patrz instrukcja :instrukcja: (pdf file)AttentionThe seminar in the Hybrid modeFaculty of Physics room 0.06for details see instruction :instruction: (pdf file)