Convergence: RoL - RCN for Exploration of Life's Origins

在生物学中，很少有问题像生命如何起源的问题那样深刻，或者持续了这么长时间。 对生命起源的研究提供了许多可能的生命起源方式。然而，在过去的一百年里，这个领域一直停留在争论哪个想法是正确的，并且几乎没有取得进展。 通过整合来自不同类型科学家的观点、背景和工具，拟议中的研究协调网络将开发出联合收割机结合不同科学观点的看待生命起源的新方法。多个会议和专业研讨会将鼓励来自许多科学领域的科学家进行合作。这将使年轻的科学家能够创造新的观点，融合他们自己学科之外的想法。除了将从这个网络中产生的理论和实验方面的进展外，还将有一个大规模的开放式在线课程和其他推广活动，将为公众提供关于生命起源的更清晰的观点。 这个研究协调网络将超越争论，如RNA或细胞代谢是第一个。该项目通过汇集来自天体生物学，人工生命研究，进化生物学，系统生物学，生物信息学，古生物学，化学，地球化学，行星科学，生物化学和统计物理学的研究人员来促进趋同，以探索我们对生命起源的理论如何结合在一起。这种方法是从理解生命的组成部分如何起源，到理解这些组成部分如何组装成生命。焦点从碎片转移到它们如何组织起来。圣达菲研究所将为一系列核心会议提供基地，沿着的专题工作组将探索生命聚集的规则。该网络的指导委员会代表了学科和机构的巨大多样性，并将寻求扩大这种观点的多样性。

Few questions in biology are as profound, or have persisted for as long, as the question of how life originated. The study of life's origins has provided no shortage of possible ways in which life may have started. However, the field has been stuck for the last hundred years in debates over which idea is right, and little progress has been made. By integrating views, backgrounds, and tools from many types of scientists, the proposed Research Coordination Network will develop new ways of looking at the origin of life that combine different scientific perspectives. Multiple meetings and specialty workshops, will encourage scientists from many areas of science to collaborate. This will allow young scientists to create new views that merge ideas from outside their own discipline. In addition to the advances in theory and experimentation that will arise from this network there will be a massive open online course and other outreach activities that will provide the public with a clearer view of how life originated. This Research Coordination Network will move beyond debates such as which came first RNA or cellular metabolism. The project promotes Convergence by bringing together researchers from astrobiology, the study of artificial life, evolutionary biology, systems biology, bioinformatics, paleobiology, chemistry, geochemistry, planetary sciences, biochemistry, and statistical physics to explore how the pieces of the theory we have on origins of life fit together. The approach is to move from understanding how building blocks of life originated to understanding how the building blocks assembled into life. The focus is shifted from the pieces to how they become organized. The Santa Fe Institute will provide home base for a series of core meetings along with topical working groups that will explore the rules under which life is assembled. The steering committee of this network represents an enormous diversity of disciplines and institutions and will look to expand that diversity of views.