My research

I am an independent and interdisciplinary scientist interested in the origin and evolution of life. After spending several formative years as a graduate fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, I worked on many research and computing projects all over the world. A wandering scientist by choice, I have collaborated with biologists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and chemists.

IAS fellowship (Jan - Jun 2018)

“What was the role of self-sustaining autocatalytic reaction networks in the origin and early evolution of life?”

The origin of life represents the transition from chemistry to biology. However, to solve this problem, theoretical approaches (mathematics) and simulations (computer science) are also required to gain insight into the possibilities and probabilities of self-sustaining structures emerging, given the extremely large size of “chemical space”.

I will use theoretical approaches (graph theory and probability theory), combined with computer simulations (Gillespie algorithm, agent based modeling) to gain insight into the probability of self-sustaining autocatalytic reaction networks emerging from a basic food source, and their ability to diversify and evolve in a population of spatially distributed compartments. This work will be done in collaboration with experimental chemists to test and verify the models with real experiments, and to include more chemical realism into the models.

Science in pictures: Ecosystems as Autocatalytic Sets

Ecosystems can be viewed as autocatalytic sets. An autocatalytic set is a chemical reaction network in which the molecules mutually catalyse each other’s formation, starting from a basic “food source”. As such, the reaction network as a whole is self-sustaining, as it is able to (re)generate (from a given food source) its own components through chemical reactions that are catalysed by these very same components.

While doing research during Wim Hordijks' fellowship, he found a specific example of an ecosystem consisting of five different species. Hordijk had the pleasure of observing this example ecosystem in action for real, in nature itself. Read more about this on his blog.