3 / 2024 // LEOPOLDINA / NEWS 5
What is your personal association with the conference ? Thomas Carell : It is very good that the Leopoldina is giving this topic a platform in Germany . Not only is it an important field for basic research , but it also has great application potential . For ex ample , the membrane envelopes of nucleic acids , as would have developed on early Earth to form a cell , are still of great significance today in connection with messenger RNA vaccines . Also in this field , the therapeutic nucleic acids have to be surrounded by envelopes of fat in oris still an open question . And even if we were to know how amino acids and nucleic acids can form under these difficult conditions , it is still unclear how the code of life , i . e . DNA , was formed . This is where biology begins .
Is the origin of life the product of chance or the end of a deterministic process ? Thomas Henning : The Earth was formed around 4.6 billion years ago and there is evidence that life has existed for four billion years . This means that conditions could possibly have been so good that life was able to develop very quickly , obviously and inevitably . For a long time it was thought that black smokers , i . e . hot water vents in the deep sea , could provide these conditions , but this idea has since been abandoned .
The focus is now back on small hydrothermal lakes which contain not only ammonia compounds and phosphorus salts , but also light and heat . In addition , the presence of water changes in dry-wet cycles . This is important because water has to be removed for biopolymers to form . Thomas Carell : That ’ s how I see it too . We are trying to recreate these dry-wet cycles in laboratory experiments and control them in such a way that we can force reactions under the conditions of a CO2 atmosphere . However , we repeatedly find that the chemistry that can take place in such an atmosphere is still largely unknown . There is also the exciting question of how deterministic chemistry can be in certain boundary conditions . We will certainly be able to learn more about the atmospheres of exoplanets using the James Webb Space Telescope .
With this in mind , how did you both come up with this idea for the Leopoldina Annual Assembly ? Thomas Henning : We have both been interested in the topic of “ Origin and beginning of life ” for quite some time . In chemistry , a lot of progress has been made using sensitive analytical techniques to detect small amounts of key molecules and incorporate kinetic data into complex reaction networks . In
Thomas Carell ML and Thomas Henning ML have been Members of the Leopoldina since 2008 and 1999 respectively . The biochemist and astrophysicist are joint scientific coordinators of the Annual Assembly .
Both of them are researching the origin of life , with Carell focussing on repair processes in DNA , epigenetic processes and nucleoid chemistry , while Henning investigates the formation of planetary systems and characterises their atmospheres .
astro physics , it has been discovered that rocky planets are very common . With the space telescope , we are now able to characterise the atmospheres of such rocky planets for the first time .
The topic is therefore ready for intensive study . The most interesting aspect is that we can bring together many different branches of science , from astrophysics to chemistry and biology to medicine . This is very exciting , as today natural sciences are becoming more and more specialised .
Image : Anna Kolata | Leopoldina
der to protect the mRNA and transport it into cells . The question of how to get nucleic acids into the cells and the principles behind it has enormous economic potential . Thomas Henning : The topic could also influence other disciplines represented at the Leopoldina . A second Copernican revolution in astrophysics has gone almost unnoticed . The Copernican Revolution sees the Earth moved out of the centre of the solar system ; suddenly we see many other planetary systems and Earth-like planets . Using the James Webb space tele scope we are able to characterise their atmospheres for the first time . This has given rise to a new branch of science which is calling for an answer to whether there is life on these planets and how life originates on terrestrial planets .
■ THE INTERVIEW WAS CONDUCTED BY BENJAMIN HAERDLE
Annual Assembly “ Origin and beginning of life ”