Conference Service Mandl

abstract: Systems Chemistry is the joint effort of prebiotic and supramolecular chemistry together with theoretical biology and complex systems research to address problems relating to the synthesis of life. The emerging field can be viewed as the bottom up pendant of systems biology towards synthetic biology. A major focus is laid on the study of autocatalytic reaction systems, such as chemical self-replicating, self-reproducing, and chiral symmetry breaking systems. The field aims at the construction of dynamic supersystems embedding at least one autocatalytic subsystem. Subsystems may be classified as genetic, metabolic, or compartiment-building. Pairwise integration into higher organized supersystems is expected to yield the knowledge enabling later the triple integration into minimal chemical cells. Finding the chemical roots of Darwinian evolvability is seen as a key challenge for the field.

The conference will convene internationally leading experts from various relevant areas to elucidate where we stand in 2008. Facets from this intriguing and truly interdisciplinary endeavour come from fields as diverse as geochemistry and organocatalysis, biomolecular chemistry and liposome technology, metal-organic chemistry and the theory of networks and evolution. Joining these facets by the unifying principle of autocatalysis leads to a new view which may be especially attractive for the next generation of chemists.