Abstract:
In his classic 1953 experiment, Stanley Miller demonstrated the abiotic synthesis of amino acids1 – from simple gasses and high energy sparks – along with a horrible mess of other compounds, which are frequently ignored. Not only did this kickstart “Prebiotic Chemistry” as an effort to understand the Origin of Life, but to many established it as a subset of natural product (retro)synthesis. Much research in this area since has followed this path, designing syntheses to obtain particular molecules/structures (natural products) in the greatest yield and purity possible (minimising the horrible mess).
I will be talking about a body of work from my time in the “Complex Chemical Systems” group in Glasgow which takes a different approach: embracing the horrible mess, not avoiding it. Instead of planning synthetic routes, we have chosen to develop reactions which will make a mess,2 and unusual approaches to analysing them.3 We are using these as a basis to explore how environmental changes (salts, minerals, the confluence of Darwin’s “warm little ponds”) don’t just steer the distribution of components in our complex reaction networks, but also their functional properties as systems.4
1. Miller, S. L. Science, 117, 528-529 (1953).
2. Rodriguez-Garcia, M. et al. Nat. Commun., 6 (2015).
3. Cooper, G. J. T. et al. Angew .Chem. Int. Ed., 56, 8079-8082 (2017).
4. Surman, A. J. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 116, 5387-5392 (2019).
Biography:
Andrew Surman is a Lecturer in Chemistry at King’s College, London. With a background in both academic and industrial research, Andrew’s interests are broad, with common threads including: self-assembly, molecular recognition, applying analytical chemistry to solve synthetic problems, systems chemistry, MS, IMS-MS, and dealing with horrible messes.