Prebiotic compartment systems and early amphiphilic landscapes
Our research involves characterisation of single chain amphiphiles to delineate moieties and combinations thereof that would have resulted in robust protocells under early Earth conditions.
This involves scanning different types of natural and non-natural amphiphiles arising due to molecular heterogeneity of prebiotic earth. These are also tested for their robustness under various physiochemical influences including, pH, temperature and wet-dry cycles. Further their formation in Astrobiologically relevant analogue environments (e.g. Ladakh) are also studied.
Compositional heterogeneity of prebiotic soup: Implications for early reactions and molecular evoluion RNA and pre-RNA Worlds
A continued focus in the lab has been on delineating the possible sequence of events that led to the origin of a putative RNA World; a time when RNA facilitated both information processing and catalytic activity. We are also characterizing plausible and novel pre-RNA World molecules that could have resulted in the formation of primitive informational molecules, prior to the emergence of an RNA World. The influence of co-solutes on the on reactions that led RNA's emergence as informational polymer is studies by quantifying their influence on the rate of non-enzymatic template dependent RNA replication.