Nghe Lab

Research focus

ERC Consolidator Grant · 2020

Conditions for the emergence of evolution during abiogenesis

Abiogenesis, the transition from non-living to living matter, is at the core of the origin of life question. However, the dynamical processes underlying abiogenesis remain unknown. The AbioEvo project aims to test the hypothesis that RNA-catalysed RNA recombination, if coupled with template-based mechanisms, provides a gradual route for the emergence of evolution by natural selection, starting from collective autocatalysis, toward template-based replication. Indeed, recombination allows both self-reproduction and shuffling of other sequences, thus, once combined with templating, provides the basic ingredients of reproduction, heredity and variation required for Darwinian evolution. The…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.