A robotic prebiotic chemist probes long term reactions of complexifying mixtures.
Silke AscheGeoffrey J T CooperGraham KeenanCole MathisLeroy CroninPublished in: Nature communications (2021)
To experimentally test hypotheses about the emergence of living systems from abiotic chemistry, researchers need to be able to run intelligent, automated, and long-term experiments to explore chemical space. Here we report a robotic prebiotic chemist equipped with an automatic sensor system designed for long-term chemical experiments exploring unconstrained multicomponent reactions, which can run autonomously over long periods. The system collects mass spectrometry data from over 10 experiments, with 60 to 150 algorithmically controlled cycles per experiment, running continuously for over 4 weeks. We show that the robot can discover the production of high complexity molecules from simple precursors, as well as deal with the vast amount of data produced by a recursive and unconstrained experiment. This approach represents what we believe to be a necessary step towards the design of new types of Origin of Life experiments that allow testable hypotheses for the emergence of life from prebiotic chemistry.
Keyphrases
- mass spectrometry
- deep learning
- machine learning
- electronic health record
- big data
- minimally invasive
- high throughput
- high resolution
- liquid chromatography
- ionic liquid
- high intensity
- single molecule
- data analysis
- gestational age
- high performance liquid chromatography
- photodynamic therapy
- fluorescent probe
- preterm birth
- solid phase extraction
- genome wide identification