Changes appended. 

A Brandeis University research project examining the chemical origins of life was recently awarded a three-year, one million dollar grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, according to a Jan. 17 BrandeisNOW article. According to Prof. Irving Epstein (CHEM) in the article, the project will focus on "exploring possible avenues of how life could emerge from non-living matter."

Researchers involved in the project include Epstein, Profs. Li Deng (CHEM), Bing Xu (CHEM) and Michael Hagan (PHYS), according to BrandeisNOW.

The project directs its attention to a "gap in life's timeline" from the formation of simple amino acids to that of complicated nucleic acids, according to BrandeisNOW. Xu wrote in an email to the Justice that "[o]ne question we try to answer is ... how small simple molecules come together to form certain assemblies during a reaction, which may help understand how simple molecules like amino acids ... become complicate[d] biomacromolecules like proteins."

Previous research focused either on earlier or later parts of life's timeline, according to BrandeisNOW. University of Chicago chemists discovered 60 years ago how complex molecules such as amino acids could be produced by a reaction of simple molecules like water or methane. Later research projects examined how complex molecules like nucleotides may react to form "complex, cell-like structures," according to BrandeisNOW.

Researchers will examine two qualities of molecular catalysts that "lead to more complex reactions and more complex structures," according to BrandeisNOW: those that may increase their number (autocatalytic) and those that are "capable of self-organization," meaning they can "spontaneously arrange themselves in intricate patterns by utilizing energy from their surroundings."

In order to achieve conditions similar to those that would have existed at this stage of the emergence of life, researchers will study the molecules in extreme temperatures and in extreme acid environments, according to BrandeisNOW.

The basic research question central to the research project is "understanding how life as we know it could have arisen," wrote Hagan in an email to the Justice. "Because basic research is performed without any specific application in mind, it often leads to (or at least builds the essential foundation for) unexpected, truly novel applications."

The application to the research Hagan wrote that he believes is most likely to arise is a "better understanding [of] how to design complex synthetic systems (and actually designing some complex synthetic systems).

"Understanding how the most complex system we know of (biology) could have arisen, and how particular motifs within biology emerged, would provide an important guide for developing synthetic systems that exhibit particular behaviors or motifs," Hagan wrote.

One particular motif the research may explain is "the fact that proteins are exclusively left-handed," wrote Hagan. The chirality, or handedness, of proteins in the creation of supplements or protein-based drugs may be the difference between a working drug and one that is ineffective or toxic, he wrote. The research may answer the question of whether "a small fluctuation in the abundance of left-handed amino acids in an early, pre-biologic system [could] take over to yield the exclusively left-handed proteins found in present-day biology," Hagan told BrandeisNOW.

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Editor's note: The online version of this article has been amended to include information from Prof. Michael Hagan (PHYS).  Hagan's description has also been changed to more accurately portray the nature of the research. The research explores how life could have arisen, not how it definitely arose.