Congratulations to Sean Jordan, Ioannis Ioannous, Hanadi Rammu, Aaron Halpern, Rafaela Vasiliadou and their collaborators for the publication of their latest paper in Nature Communications! They show that FeS clusters form spontaneously with just cysteine, Fe and S. The same clusters as those used by cells to reduce CO2. Were they also the first cofactors at the origin of life?

​​

• Jordan SF, Ioannou I, Rammu H, Halpern A, Bogart L, Ahn M, Vasiliadou R, Christodolou J, Maréchal A, Lane N. "Spontaneous assembly of redox-active iron-sulfur clusters at low concentrations of cysteine" Nat. Comm, (2021) [link]

A preprint is available on bioRxiv for the paper by Silvana Pinna, Cäcilia Kunz, Stuart Harrison and Sean Jordan! 

​

• Pinna S, Kunz C, Harrison SA, Jordan SF, Ward J, Werner F, Lane N. "A prebiotic base for ATP as the universal energy currency" bioRxiv, (2021) [link]

Our protocell paper has had quite the coverage!

Here is where you can find all the articles that have been written about it:​ Read: Mail Online, More: Express, Times (£), Independent, IFLScience, Fox News, Yahoo! News, New York Post, The Conversation, News18 (India) and UCL News.

​​

​

​

​

Image: medium.com

Congratulations to Sean Jordan, Hanadi Rammu, Ivan Zheludev and our collaborators for the publication of their latest paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution! By creating protocells in hot, alkaline seawater, the team has added to evidence that the origin of life could have been in deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Here's a 'Behind the Paper' blog Sean wrote about their paper!

​

• Jordan SF, Rammu H, Zheludev I, Hartley AM, Maréchal A, Lane N. "Promotion of protocell self-assembly from mixed amphiphiles at the origin of life" Nat. Eco. Evol, (2019) [link]

Congratulations to Sean Jordan and Eloise Nee for the publication of their latest paper in Interface Focus! This work explains how the physical differences in the stability and aggregation of protocells they observed may have shaped the divergence of bacteria and archaea in early hydrothermal environments.

​

• Jordan SF, Nee E, Lane N. "Isoprenoids enhance the stability of fatty acid membranes at the emergence of life potentially leading to an early lipid divide" Interface Focus (2019) 9(6): 20190067 [link]

Congratulations to Rafaela Vasiliadou, Sean Jordan and our collaborators for the publication of their latest paper in Interface Focus! In this work they analyse whether vectorial electrochemistry can facilitate the reduction of CO2 by H2 under alkaline hydrothermal conditions using a microfluidic reactor.

​

• Vasiliadou R, Dimov N, Szita N, Jordan SF, Lane N. "Possible mechanisms of CO2 reduction by H2 via prebiotic vectorial electrochemistry" Interface Focus (2019) 9(6): 20190073 [link]

Professor Lane talked about the events in his life that got him to this point, from earning his PhD at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School (now UCL Medical School) in 1995 to his current research.