Mapping the Chemical Universe of Biomolecules for Astrobiology

Kurzfassung

Understanding the origins of life is a central question of Astrobiology. Computer methods offer unique means to approach this challenge. In order to obtain a better understanding of the selection rules which guided chemical and early biochemical evolution, our approach is to computationally generate exhaustive sets of biomolecule analogues, to calculate their physico-chemical properties, and to simulate adaptive processes that might have led to the biochemical foundations of life as we know it. Results on the amino acid alphabet will be presented and ongoing studies of nucleotide analogue libraries will be discussed.