Keynote
Dissipative Systems Showing Signs of Life

Complex networks of chemical reactions together define how life works. We are familiar with the metabolic networks studied in biochemistry, and in recent decades many regularly recurring network motifs have been uncovered that are responsible for much of the functional behaviour in signalling or genetic networks. However, molecular ‘circuits’ are very delicate, and sensitive to changes in concentration, temperature, and so on. I believe we need a new direction in chemistry to provide a truly molecular level insight into how molecules create life. Recently, we presented a versatile strategy for ‘synthesizing’ programmable enzymatic reaction networks in microfluidic flow reactors that exhibit sustained oscillations. The first step in the design of complex enzymatic networks is the choice of a suitable topology. We are inspired by the signalling, metabolic, and genetic network motifs frequently occurring in Nature. I will show how small molecules with subtly different functional groups offer tuning of the properties of the network. An important feature of self-organization in complex systems is that these systems can self-repair, even when perturbed significantly. In my lecture, I will show how we can explore the dynamic (i.e. robustness and resilience) of these reaction networks in response to global perturbations . Furthermore, I will highlight recent progress in coupling reaction networks to create dissipative systems with life-like properties.

Recent publications

[1] S.N. Semenov, et al. Nature Chemistry, 2015, 7, 160-165

[2] A.S.Y. Wong, et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 12415-12420

[3] A.S.Y. Wong, et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 8146-8151

[4] A.A.Pogodaev, et. al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 15296-15299.