Molecular Origins of Life, Munich 2026

Sitzung

Session E

12.06.2026, 08:30

LMU Munich - Great (Große) Aula

25. Environmental Selection for Prebiotic metallopeptides

Sheref Mansy (University of Trento)

12.06.26, 08:30

Sheref Mansy

In modern biology, many of the most ancient catalytic processes rely on metal coordination, particularly iron–sulfur clusters bound to short, metal-binding motifs within the active sites of enzymes. This suggests that metal–ligand chemistry played a key role prior to the emergence of enzymes. Here, I will highlight how environmental conditions can drive selection and...

22. Volcanically Driven Prebiotic Environments on the Early Earth: Insights from Modern Icelandic Analogues

Bettina Scheu (LMU Munich)

12.06.26, 08:55

Bettina Scheu

The sparse preservation of early Archean rock records leaves Earth’s earliest geological environments poorly constrained and their suitability for prebiotic chemical evolution largely speculative. Identifying plausible setting(s) for the emergence of life therefore remains one of the central challenges in origins research.

Many promising candidate settings are intrinsically...

11. Electron Spin, Chiral Symmetry Breaking, and Life’s Homochirality

Furkan Ozturk (California Institute of Technology)

12.06.26, 09:20

Furkan Ozturk

Electron spin couples strongly to molecular chirality through the recently discovered phenomenon of chiral-induced spin selectivity. As such, spin-polarized magnetic surfaces, such as magnetite, can function as robust chiral reagents and facilitate asymmetric processes on early Earth’s environments. I will discuss recent experiments that exploit the strong coupling between...

38. Moderated Discussion - Session A

12.06.26, 09:45