Overview

We’re currently interested in the dynamics that moved non-living chemicals into the first living cells in order for us to capture those dynamics in software. To that end, today we’ll be focusing on a high-level understanding of the biochemistry actually involved and hypothesized to be necessary for a living protocell to emerge.

AI Policy

As a reminder, you are not allowed to use genAI to summarize or produce your reading check responses. These checks are for you to engage with the material and start thinking about things before class. It’s okay if you don’t understand everything ahead of time!

Basic Learning Objectives

Before class, you should be able to:

  • Explain the high-level functional steps from non-living chemicals to a protocell
  • Start thinking about how those functional steps could be realized in a simulation

Advanced Learning Objectives

After class, you should be able to:

  • Design a basic protocell simulation

Reading

Read the following:

Checks

Submit answers to the following on Moodle:

  • What are the high-level components proposed in the article to be necessary for a chemical protocell?
  • Given our goal is to instantiate the functions and dynamics, not simulate real chemistry exactly, how could you translate one or two of the components into the artificial chemistry system that we’ve started thinking in? Remember to think bottom-up, not top-down, so you want to think about what kinds of rules/physics you can implement that would enable a protocell to form, not directly design the protocell yourself.