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Nature 420, 278-279 (21 November 2002) | doi:10.1038/420278a
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Assistant or Associate Professor - Cell & Systems Biology
- University of Toronto
- Toronto, ON Canada
Basic Science Medical Educators
- Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
- El Paso, Texas, USA
Molecular evolution: Booting up life
Gerald F. Joyce
Abstract
A key question about evolution is how the first informational molecules — thought to be an early form of life — could generate efficient self-replication machinery. The problem is tackled in new computer simulations.
In thinking about the origin of life on Earth and, in principle, elsewhere in the Universe, many regard the 'hard problem' to be getting the ball rolling in the first place. It is generally thought that life on Earth began with the production of macromolecules that served as primitive stores of genetic information (genomes).
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