Abstract: 
Life might have started on the early Earth gradually from the elementary interactions between abiotic molecules -- deciphering them is crucial for the understanding of “life’s” origins and evolution. To decode the evolutionary features of such interactions, I am developing minimal chemical systems capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. As a self-replicating model, I use autocatalytic reaction networks (ACSs) of catalytic RNAs where ribozymes self-assemble from smaller substrate fragments. ACSs have been implicated as very important to kick-start early life and might have preceded the contemporary template-based replication [1,2]. However, building evolving ACSs is not trivial and requires both conceptual and experimental developments. Some of the unanswered questions that need to be addressed are emergence, network identity, heritability, and compartmentalization to demonstrate growth and division. Additionally, how variation appears leading to differential fitness of some networks over others such that they can be selected in a Darwinian manner. Though theoretical formalizations are available experiments are lagging behind or missing altogether [3].

I will talk about a few concepts and efforts we have been doing in addressing some of these questions by exploiting networks of catalytic RNAs, droplet microfluidics, single-cell (droplet) sequencing, and phase-separated coacervate droplets [3-6].

References
1. Vasas, V., Fernando, C., Santos, M., Kauffman, S. & Szathmáry, E. 2012. Biol. Direct 7: discussion.
2. Adamski P., Eleveld M., Sood A., Kun A., Szilágyi A., Czárán T., Szathmáry E. & Otto S. 2020. Nat. Rev. Chem. 4: 386–403. 
3. Ameta S., Matsubara Y.J., Chakraborty N., Krishna S. & Thutupalli S. 2021 Life 308.
4. Arsène, S., Ameta, S., Lehman, N., Griffiths, A.D. & Nghe, P. Nucleic Acids Res. 46: 9660–9666.
5. Ameta, S., Arsène, S., Foulon, S., Saudemont, B., Clifton, B.E., Griffiths, A.D. & Nghe, P. 2021. Nature Commun. 12: 1–11.
6. Ameta S., Kumar M., Prashanth S., Gandavadi D., Chakraborty N., Thutupalli S. (2021, in preparation). 

Speaker: Dr. Sandeep Ameta, Simons Centre for the Study of Living Machines, National Centre for the Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, India.
.

Speaker bio: 
Dr. Sandeep Ameta is an independent Campus Fellow hosted at the Simons Centre NCBS Bangalore in the laboratory of Dr. Shashi Thutupalli. Earlier, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Andrew D. Griffiths and Dr. Philippe Nghe at ESPCI Paris, France. He completed his Ph.D. at the Heidelberg University, Germany under the supervision of Prof. Andres Jäschke.

Host: Tony Z. Jia, ELSI.

Date: Fri, 18 June, 15:30-16:30 JST (Fri, 18 June, 06:30-07:30 UTC)

Venue: Online