The Future of Origin of Life Research: Bridging Decades-Old Divisions

Abstract

Research on the origin of life is highly heterogeneous. After a peculiar historical development, it still includes strongly opposed views which potentially hinder progress. In the 1st Interdisciplinary Origin of Life Meeting, early-career researchers gathered to explore the commonalities between theories and approaches, critical divergence points, and expectations for the future. We find that even though classical approaches and theories-e.g. bottom-up and top-down, RNA world vs. metabolism-first-have been prevalent in origin of life research, they are ceasing to be mutually exclusive and they can and should feed integrating approaches. Here we focus on pressing questions and recent developments that bridge the classical disciplines and approaches, and highlight expectations for future endeavours in origin of life research.

Keywords: LUCA; abiogenesis; bottom-up; early life; emergence; origins of life; prebiotic chemistry; top-down.

Figure 1

Current central questions in origin of life (OoL) research. In order to find answers, each of the natural sciences illustrated has to play a role by converting these questions into hypotheses and theories, while constantly testing them experimentally. The fundamental roles of philosophy, mathematics and informatics are portrayed in the background.

Figure 2

Timeline of recent multidisciplinary achievements that build bridges in OoL research. Included are examples from the past 10 years of OoL research that bridge disciplines, approaches and/or methods, biomolecules/single-world scenarios, simulations and experiments. The choice of studies does not aim to cover (exclusively) novel findings, but those that build bridges.