5-yearhorizon
Automation begins to pay off
Chemical systems have been developed that display open-ended evolution, that is, avoiding equilibrium. Increased use of automation and AI allows us to conduct high-throughput experiments.
5.2
Topic
Science of the Origins of Life
Anticipation Committee Chair
Living organisms as we know them today are the extremely complex products of a long period of evolutionary change. Understanding the origins of life therefore can teach us a great deal about the possibilities inherent in biology and potential routes towards new medical insights, as well as providing unparalleled perspectives on cosmological history and our own place in the universe.
Video
How did life arise from inert matter?
Researching the origins of life involves study of biology, chemistry, geology, palaeontology, physics, cosmology and information theory, among other disciplines. Investigations require that researchers consider conditions on the early Earth and how they changed, understand fundamental issues in systems chemistry, and identify the most essential features of living organisms. As a result, progress in this area depends partly on improvements to the geological record, partly on advancements in measurement techniques necessary to study highly complex chemical systems and to a great extent on progress in fundamental biology.
Much progress has been made, but there remain many areas of debate, such as the chronological order in which nucleic acids, other polymers, metabolic reactions, lipid-based compartments and various other components of living systems arose. 1 In order to answer such questions, researchers attempt to experimentally demonstrate geologically plausible processes that lead to life-like behaviours, features and phenomena.
There is also no settled theoretical framework for studies of the origins of life. A recent proposal called assembly theory,2 for instance, has not yet achieved widespread acceptance. Assembly theory aims to measure the complexity of a molecule by the number of steps required to make it. However, life often acts to simplify the molecules it uses, and furthermore much of the complexity lies not in the individual molecules but rather in the set of interactions between them. This means that researchers must study not only individual chemical processes but also the environment in which they happen — and their effects on neighbouring processes taking place within that environment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Understanding the origins of life is of both practical and philosophical interest. Not only does this subject have the potential to add to physics, biology and medicine, it may also inform humanity’s understanding of its place and role in the universe. Research efforts in this area involve attempts to understand and create the Prebiotic chemistry that can give rise to phenomena associated with life, and to understand the Systems biology of how these phenomena interact to create the complexities observed in living systems. These theoretical and experimental investigations are informed and supplemented by ongoing research into the history of life, as revealed in The geological record on Earth and in the evidence derived from studies of chemical processes and molecular signatures observed in off-Earth environments. Studies of the surface and atmospheres of the solar system’s planets and moons, and the light received from planetary environments beyond our solar system, offer promising routes to understanding Exobiology and how life might arise in ways that differ from terrestrial biological pathways.
Understanding the origins of life is an enormously challenging multidimensional problem, but progress is being made. Experts predict breakthroughs in the next five years for Prebiotic chemistry, but breakthroughs in Exobiology are more than 20 years away. The Anticipation Potential score of the latter is also driven by the lack of awareness, the strong impact of the field and the need for coordinated international action to capitalise on its advances.
Anticipatory Impact:
Three fundamental questions guide GESDA’s mission and drive its work: Who are we, as humans? How can we all live together? How can we ensure the well-being of humankind and the sustainable future of our planet? We asked researchers from the field to anticipate what impact future breakthroughs could have on each of these dimensions. This wheel summarises their opinions when considering each of these questions, with a higher score indicating high anticipated impact, and vice versa.
- Anticipated impact on who we are as humans
- Anticipated impact on how we will all live together
- Anticipated impact on the well-being of humankind and sustainable future of our planet
Prebiotic chemistry
Making the chemical building blocks of life in a way that is “prebiotically plausible” — that is, likely to have occurred naturally on Earth — is a central pillar of research in this area.3 In the 21st century there has been considerable success in obtaining multiple biochemicals, relevant to different aspects of the living organism, from the same feedstock and environment.4 Experiments have demonstrated that a small number of starter chemicals can lead, with minimal intervention and often with self-organising, highly robust reaction networks, to hundreds of products.5
Future Horizons:
×××
10-yearhorizon
Chemical computation becomes possible
“Protocells” with self-replicating nucleic acid driven by metabolic reactions are created. Laboratory experiments utilising a small array of reactive compounds have the topology and kinetics necessary to carry out basic computational processes via chemical reactions. Network-level descriptions of both living and non-living chemical systems distil a small number of correlative factors associated with the expression of “life-like attributes” in those systems.
25-yearhorizon
Predictions of life-like chemistry become possible
We have systematic comparisons of the prebiotic chemical potential of different geological settings. Naturally occurring reactive compounds are shown to have the necessary topology and kinetics to permit emergent information-processing systems to form as predecessors to living systems. Systems-level descriptions of living entities are sufficiently sophisticated to permit direct predictions of the frequency of occurrence of chemical systems with life-like behaviours, which can in turn be used to infer the probability of life arising spontaneously under generic prescribed conditions.
Commensurately, researchers are studying how individual chemical reactions can aggregate to form network-level chemical systems that demonstrate attributes that we generally associate with life.6,7,8 Machine learning may prove to be a useful tool for understanding the properties of these chemical networks.9
There is a growing scientific understanding of how systems of chemicals can change over time and in particular what it might mean for them to “evolve” in the absence of true genetic control. Recent findings indicate multiple characteristics that could be used to define a genuinely “complex” chemical predecessor to life at the systems level.10,11 These might include: an emergent set of chemicals or processes that is robust even amid changes to the rest of the system; systems that are far from chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium (a non-equilibrium state is one of the central features of life); or emergent chemical systems that are capable of processing information (but which do not require explicit structures, such as genes or the ribosome, to store or process biological genetic information).12
Prebiotic chemistry - Anticipation Scores
The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:
- The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
- The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
- The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.
This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.
Systems biology
Any investigation of how life originated aims to conceive and create simplified versions of living systems that are nonetheless self-sustaining.13This requires the tools of systems biology, where living organisms are understood as networks of chemicals and of systems. Systems biology treats life as a complex system of interacting nodes, each with its own properties, and aims for a holistic and computational level of understanding.14
Future Horizons:
×××
5-yearhorizon
Evidence of primordial metabolic processes arises
We accumulate experimental evidence that metabolic processes could have sprung up on the primordial Earth, in the form of non-enzymatic versions of all major metabolic cycles known to be evolutionarily ancient.
10-yearhorizon
Extinct biomolecules are reconstructed
Palaeoenzymology uses the tools of synthetic biology and phylogenetics to reconstruct “extinct” biomolecules.
25-yearhorizon
Model of LUCA brings benefits
A model of the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA), based on synthetic biology, phylogenetics and palaeontology, provides useful understanding of life’s history.
A key aim is to produce “emergent” properties, where the overall system has properties and functionalities that are not inherent in the individual parts but emerge from their interactions.15 One example would be self-organisation: systems of chemicals that can self-assemble into three-dimensional structures or reaction cycles, and which are on some level self-sustaining.
This move towards studies of complex systems presents a considerable analytical challenge. Modern experiments that seek origins for the emergence of life often involve set-ups in which dozens of chemicals, or even more, interact with one another. As a result, research is aiming to develop highly sensitive analytical techniques that can track the changes in these systems.16
Systems biology - Anticipation Scores
The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:
- The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
- The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
- The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.
This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.
The geological record
Our knowledge of the early Earth offers a key constraint on hypotheses for the origin of life. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the oldest rocks on Earth have been destroyed or altered by geological processes such as tectonic shift. Consequently, the geological record is extremely poor for the first billion years of Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history.17 The earliest confirmed fossil organisms to have yet been discovered are 3.5 billion years old,18 and so all we know is that life arose during a 1-billion-year window — an enormous span of time, roughly twice as long as complex animals have existed.
Future Horizons:
×××
5-yearhorizon
Criteria for assessment of evidence for life are developed
Explicit criteria are developed for the assessment of purported evidence for early life on Earth.
10-yearhorizon
Earth’s formation is better understood
We have an improved understanding of Earth’s formation via study of exoplanets.
25-yearhorizon
Origin of Earth’s water clarified
Greater clarity is achieved on the origin of Earth’s water and the initial development of oceans and land.
Improvements in our understanding of the geological record will continue to narrow down when and how life may have formed. This may happen through discovery of hard evidence of life at an earlier date, through innovative synthetic biology and evolutionary systems biology tools that reconstruct ancient life,19 or through demonstrations that conditions before a certain point were unremittingly hostile to life.20
There is currently limited geological evidence to illuminate conditions on the early Earth. New discoveries about the temperature range, the presence or absence of exposed land, and the chemical make-up of the oceans and atmosphere, as well as the elemental composition, would all provide useful and significant information from which research could gain a better understanding of which scenarios of the origin of life are plausible.21,22,23 These questions are bound up with fundamental problems in geology, notably the origin of modern plate tectonics.24
The geological record - Anticipation Scores
The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:
- The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
- The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
- The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.
This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.
Exobiology
There is currently no good evidence of life or fossil life on other worlds in the solar system, let alone on exoplanets in other solar systems. That may change as we continue exploring other worlds in the solar system. Even if no living organisms are found elsewhere, our investigations will shed light on the processes of prebiotic chemistry and primordial geochemistry.25The planet Mars and the moons Europa, Enceladus and Titan all have or had environmental conditions similar to parts of Earth. Future missions such as ExoMars and Europa Clipper — launched late 2024 but not due to arrive at Europa until 2030 — will provide information about processes that are likely to have taken place on the young Earth. A key opportunity for the coming decades will arise with sample-return missions that can bring high-quality samples back to Earth for detailed study.
Future Horizons:
×××
5-yearhorizon
Mars gives clues to Earth-like prebiotic chemistry
Data from the Perseverance rover on Mars indicates Earth-like prebiotic chemistry billions of years ago.
10-yearhorizon
Solvents for life are better understood
We have good evidence on whether water is the only possible solvent for life. The James Webb Space Telescope has given useful information about the conditions in which terrestrial planets formed and the abundance of specific organics in these conditions.
25-yearhorizon
Mars sample return planned
Examples of life or fossil life on other worlds are found, helping to expand or clarify our definition of life. A plan for a high-quality sample-return mission to Mars is drawn up.
Discovering life beyond the solar system remains a possibility, if a remote one. It is theoretically possible to find indirect evidence of life on an exoplanet, for example by detecting the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere through spectroscopic analysis. However, there are issues with interpreting such detections: on Earth, oxygen is produced by only living organisms, but it is difficult (if not impossible) to rule out abiotic processes being the cause on an exoplanet.26 This problem has already bedevilled researchers who detected methane on Mars and phosphine on Venus, and will be far worse when dealing with extremely distant worlds.27
Exobiology - Anticipation Scores
The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:
- The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
- The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
- The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.
This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.
