Life From Lipids Israeli scientists have introduced a new theory on the origins of life. To date, it is generally assumed that life began with the spontaneous emergence of biopolymers, such as proteins or RNA, where information is stored in the sequence of chemical units. But researchers at the Weizmann Institute suspect that life begun in lipids instead.
Lipids are oily substances, known as chief ingredients of the cell's membranes.
They are readily synthesized under simulated prebiological conditions, and because of their bipartite nature, have the tendency to spontaneously form different structures made of thousands of molecular units, especially in aqueous environments. They demonstrate how a droplet-like lipid assembly, when growing and splitting, could manifest a form of inheritance. Their computer simulations show how a compositional genome would be handed down with some fidelity to the offspring assemblies. In the early prebiological era, the same lipid-like substances that carry the information could perform catalysis. Molecules already present inside a droplet would function as a molecular selection committee, enhancing the rate of entry for some, and rejecting others.