A5: Non-equilibrium dynamics in nucleic acid sequence pools (Friedrich Simmel)
Under prebiotic conditions, nucleic acid polymerization, replication, and degradation processes will likely have resulted in pools of nucleic acids with varying sequences, and thus varying interactions. In this project, we will study the dynamics of such nucleic acid pools under non-equilibrium driving, in particular their phoretic movement within salt gradients. We surmise that the dynamics in such gradients has led to the preferential accumulation of certain nucleic acid sequences over others, resulting in a primitive physical selection mechanism.