ERC Consolidator Grant · 2020
On the chemical origins of biological metabolism
It has long been assumed that biological metabolism must have been an invention of life since its many reactions are catalyzed by enzymes, complex proteins that did not exist at life’s origins. However, my group and others have recently discovered that transition metals alone can mediate some of life’s most central metabolic pathways in the absence of enzymes (Krebs cycle, Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, glycolysis, etc.). In contrast to popular ideas about the origin of life that focus only on genetics, this realization suggests a radically different vision in which biological metabolism arose from geochemical reaction networks, before enzymes or life itself, and created the molecules of genetics…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.
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