A résumé of an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science describing how lipid vesicles can, through physiochemical processes, replicate. The lead author is Doron Lancet of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Dr. Lancet elaborates on the lipid model, and significantly, Dr. Lancet rejects the "RNA world" model as well, and cites Shapiro as one of the authorities rejecting that model.
The following is an abstract of an article in
The Anatomical Record. The authors are Pierre-Alain Monnard of the Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University; and David W. Deamer of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California-Santa Cruz.
The entire article can be read here.
Quote:This review addresses the question of the origin of life, with emphasis on plausible boundary structures that may have initially provided cellular compartmentation. Some form of compartmentation is a necessary prerequisite for maintaining the integrity of interdependent molecular systems that are associated with metabolism, and for permitting variations required for speciation. The fact that lipid-bilayer membranes define boundaries of all contemporary living cells suggests that protocellular compartments were likely to have required similar, self-assembled boundaries. Amphiphiles such as short-chain fatty acids, which were presumably available on the early Earth, can self-assemble into stable vesicles that encapsulate hydrophilic solutes with catalytic activity. Their suspensions in aqueous media have therefore been used to investigate nutrient uptake across simple membranes and encapsulated catalyzed reactions, both of which would be essential processes in protocellular life forms.
This is another abstract of an article, Synthesis of lipids on the micelle/water interface (however, the article must be purchased to be read), by Kilian Conde-Frieboes and Eveline Blöchliger, at the Institut für Polymere, in Zurich.
Quote:Liposomes can be considered as a model for a protocell in the context of the origin of life. These self-organising systems can self-reproduce under certain experimental conditions. Herein we demonstrate the ability of another lipid aggregate, micelles, to catalyse a reaction leading finally to the formation of new lipids. In contrast to other published work, where the lipids are products of a hydrolysis reaction, here the lipids are built up from simple precursors. In addition, we observe a transformation of micelles into liposomes.
This article, entitled "Self-Organization, Autocatalysis and Models of the Origin of Life", by Regina R. Monaco, of the Exobiology Division, NASA Ames Research Center, and Fátima Rateb de Montozon, of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, and the Department of Geomatic Engineering, University College London, describes both protein first and lipid first models.
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The small molecule thesis of Shapiro simply requires a "container." To suggest that Shapiro did not have lipid spheres in mind, or that he is unaware of the work of other biochemists in the area of lipids and the origins of life ought to stretch the credulity even of someone who takes the bible as literal truth.
But then, that's "real life's" problem in the first place, innit . . .
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