Frontispiece: Life's Biological Chemistry: A Destiny or Destination Starting from Prebiotic Chemistry?

Origin of life is thought to be intertwined with the origins of biomolecules, its biological chemistry and biochemical pathways. Thus, experimental investigations have been guided by the concept of extrapolating extant biology backwards in time. This has led to the desire of recapitulating life′s processes—treating extant life′s molecules and pathways as the only outcome—and to synthesize the target biomolecules as directly as possible by prebiotic chemistry, either based on how life synthesizes them now or through plausible alternative pathways. In the Concept article on page 16708 ff. R. Krishnamurthy argues for the treatment of life's biological molecules and chemistry as a destination (and not destiny); that it may be worthwhile to begin without targeted and desired outcomes, to start with plausible prebiotic molecules (under plausible geophysical and geochemical constraints) and observe their evolving chemistries and interactions, to discover what molecular processes and systems can emerge. The revelations from such approaches could not only have repercussions for the way we think about the emergence of our own biological chemistry, but also influence our search for alien chemistry and life.