“Life emerged as soon as there was water on Earth - it happened freaking fast!”
On Wednesday, November 12, he will give a Helix Lab Tech Talk on the origin of life. We spoke with him about motivation, molecules, and the mystery of life’s beginnings.
Why did you become a scientist?
I have wanted to be a scientist since I was about eight. I grew up with my mother who was a physics and math teacher, and at home, Niels Bohr and Darwin were heroes. Research was like a way of thinking about the world, and I have always had that mindset. As a child, I was fascinated by animals and found behavioral research and evolution incredibly exciting.
I read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene in elementary school, and it changed the way I saw the world, quite dramatically actually. In high school, I discovered the molecular level and felt that it was the path I had to follow. I studied biology to understand living systems before digging into their molecules, and I have never regretted it. I have since worked as a biochemist, but my biological background has proven invaluable.
How did the project on the origin of life start?
In the lab, we usually study protein protein interactions, how proteins communicate and create signaling pathways in the body. We focus especially on proteins that do not fold neatly like in textbooks but flop around like cooked spaghetti in a jacuzzi.
When we started investigating how two of these unfolded proteins bind to each other, we discovered something unexpected: they do not lock into a single shape but tumble over each other. Then we wondered what happens if we make a mirror image of one protein. Amino acids are chiral, like left and right hands, and in living systems only one version exists. When we made the right handed version, it bound just as well as the natural one. It was pretty wild and was actually published in Nature last year.
This made us think about why life on Earth chose one hand, why amino acids exist only in left handed form. On the asteroid Bennu, both versions have been found in equal amounts, so at some point life must have made a choice. Now we are trying to recreate the earliest forms of life in the lab by making tiny protein bubbles called coacervates of both right and left handed proteins and observing their behavior. Can they catalyze chemical reactions? They may very well be the key to understanding how life began on Earth.
Photo: Rasmus Ursin Knudsen
How do you hope the project develops?
The ultimate goal is to recreate something resembling life in the lab. If we can create a system that undergoes some form of what is called Darwinian evolution, we have built the foundation for life, which would be incredible.
One of the experiments we are planning is to see if chemical processes can run inside a condensate without us interfering, simply by feeding it. There are many functional groups, chemical groups that can pull and push electrons inside the condensate. So we are thinking that if we can get a condensate to produce tiny pieces of protein on its own, we will have come a very long way.
Are there practical applications for this research?
If we succeed in making coacervates where chemical processes can occur inside, they could act as microreactors, which would certainly have industrial applications. Protein molecules are quite stable inside coacervates, so they can survive for a long time. They can be kept in a hydrogel, where they remain incredibly stable, and we can carry out chemical reactions inside them. This would make highly efficient catalysts and a way of using proteins that has not been done before. I believe there will be industrial interest in this.
Why does the question of life’s origin continue to fascinate?
For many years, research on the origin of life was considered the domain of eccentrics. There was almost a consensus that we could never know. Even when someone proposed the most beautiful theory about how life could have begun, it could not be proven or disproven, and that stripped it of scientific weight.
Today, it is fascinating because we are actually at a point where we can begin testing ideas. We will not say this is exactly how life began, but we may soon be able to say this is one way life could have begun, and here is the evidence. That is a huge difference.
Why should people attend your Tech Talk?
People should come if they are curious about how life could have arisen at all. I will talk about how protein molecules behave and what we actually know about the origin of life and where our understanding might be heading.
A logical consequence of Darwin’s theory is that all life today comes from one common cell, which we call LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor. What we are looking at is what came before LUCA. How did the first cell actually arise? We are talking four billion years ago. As soon as water appeared on Earth, life emerged, and it happened freaking fast, geologically speaking. It probably did not take 100 million years before stable life existed. That is incredible, because it suggests life can emerge in many places in the universe. The same molecules we find here have also been found on the asteroid Bennu, and there are even new signs of life from Mars. So it is not unlikely that life exists elsewhere, maybe everywhere.
To attend Johan Olsen's Tech Talk