A partir d'un inici tan simple : l'origen de la vida: un problema de química amb història

Abstract

Charles R. Darwins theory was on the evolution of life but not on its origin. The scientific knowledge was considered by Darwin not developed enough to attack such a difficult problem. After 150 years, advances in biology, geology, chemistry or astronomy have allowed us to elaborate models and hypotheses within the framework of the evolutionary theory on the origin of life proposed by Aleksandr I. Oparin. About 4 billion years ago, a rich inventory of organic compounds accumulated on the Earth, as a product of volcanic, atmospheric, and cosmic chemistry. During the emergence of chemical complexity, a critical point was reached with the invention of replicative polymers, given that the optimization by natural selection and the historical contingency were added to the determinism of abiotic chemistry. These genetic polymers appeared in the context of a protometabolism encapsulated within lipid vesicles. The landmark of the origin of life was the harmonious articulation of suprachemical (or infrabiological) systems, like membranes, metabolism and replicative polymers, under the conditions of the primitive Earth. Albeit most details still remain unknown, the processes involved in the emergence of life are scientifically comprehensible and experimentally reproducible.