The first step from molecules to life: Formation of large random molecules acting as micro-environments

The mathematician John von Neumann, through his work on universal constructors, discovereda generalized version of the central dogma of molecular biology biology in the 1940s, long  before the biological version had been discovered. While his discovery played no role in the  development of molecular biology, we may benefit from a similar mathematical approach to find  clues on the origin of life. This then involves addressing those problems in the field that  do not depend on the details of organic chemistry. We can then consider a general set of  models that describe machines capable of self-maintenance and self-replication formulated in  terms of a set of building blocks and their interactions. The analogue of the origin of life problem is then to explain how one can get to such  machines starting from a set of only building blocks. A fundamental obstacle one then faces  is the limit on the complexity of low fidelity replicating systems, preventing building  blocks from getting assembled randomly into low fidelity machines which can then improve due  to natural selection [1]. A generic way out of this problem is for the entire ecosystem of  machines to have been encapsulated in a micro-structure with fixed inner surface features  that would have boosted the fidelity [2]. Such micro-structures could have formed as a result  of the random assembly of building blocks, leading to so-called percolation clusters [2].This then leads us to consider how in the real world a percolation process involving the  random assembly of organic molecules can be realized. A well studied process in the  literature is the assembly of organic compounds in ice grains due to UV radiation and heating  events [3,4,5]. This same process will also lead to the percolation process if it proceeds  for a sufficiently long period [2].In this talk I will discuss the percolation process in more detail than has been done in [2],  explaining how it leads to the necessary symmetry breakings such as the origin of chiral  molecules needed to explain the origin of life.    [1] Eigen, M., 1971. Self-organization of matter and the evolution of biological  macromolecules. Naturwissenschaften 58, 465-523.[2] Mitra, S., 2019. Percolation clusters of organics in interstellar ice grains as the  incubators of life, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 149, 33-38.[3] Ciesla, F., and Sandford.,S., 2012. Organic Synthesis via Irradiation and Warming of Ice  Grains in the Solar Nebula. Science 336, 452-454.[4] Muñoz Caro, G., et al., 2002. Amino acids from ultraviolet irradiation of interstellar ice  analogues. Nature 416, 403-406.[5]  Meinert, C,., et al., 2016. Ribose and related sugars from ultraviolet irradiation of  interstellar ice analogs. Science 352, 208-212.