Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives.- Historical overview to the quest of self-reproduction and artificial life.- On defining life.- A few precautionary words concerning terminology.- Template Chemistry.- Molecular replication: From minimal to complex systems.- Self-replication and reproduction: From molecules to protocells.- Extrabiotic replication and self-assembly.- The prebiotic synthesis and replication of RNA oligomers: The transition from prebiotic molecules to the RNA world.- Template-directed synthesis of oligomers: Kinetic vs. thermodynamic control.- Chirality and Replication.- Chirality and the first self-replicating molecules.- Are peptides possible support for self-amplification of sequence information?.- The RNA World.- Minimonsters: Evolutionary by-products of in vitro RNA amplification.- Models for the autocatalytic replication of RNA.- RNA species that multiply indefinitely with RNA polymerase.- Chemical oscillations and non-linear chemical kinetics.- The Cell View and Cell Models.- The chemical implementation of autopoiesis.- Molecular recognition in micelles.- Self-reproducing vesicles.- Sources and syntheses of prebiotic amphiphiles.- Ancient paralogous duplications and the search for Archean cells.- Posters.- Self-replication of oligonucleotides in reverse micelles.- Liposomes from lipidonucleotides and from lipidopeptides.- Dendritic luminescent and redox-active supermolecules made of transition metal complexes.- Layer-by-layer adsorption: The solid/liquid-interface as a template for the controlled growth of well-defined nanostructures of polyelectrolytes, proteins, DNA and polynucleotides.- Molecular recognition of amino acids by RNA.- Towards nature’s structural guidelines: Conclusions on the unsolved structures of RNA-dependent RNApolymerases.- A self-catalyzed (autopoietic) synthesis of an anionic surfactant: Experimental evidence and theoretical modeling.- Competition, reciprocity, and mutation at the molecular level: Irradiation of a synthetic replicator generates a superior species.- Giant vesicles.