Origins of life: a route to nanotechnology

The origins of life and nanotechnology are two seemingly disparate areas of scientific investigation. However, the fundamental questions of lifeʹs beginnings and the applied construction of a Drexlerian nanotechnology both share a similar problem; how did and how can self-reproducing molecular machines originate? Here we draw attention to the coincidence between nanotechnology and origins research with particular attention paid to the spontaneous adsorption and scanning tunneling microscopy investigation of purine and pyrimidine bases self-organized into monolayers, adsorbed to the surfaces of crystalline solids. These molecules which encode biological information in nucleic acids, can form supramolecular architectures exhibiting enantiomorphism with the complexity to store and encode putative protobiological information. We conclude that the application of nanotechnology to the investigation of lifeʹs origins, and vice versa, could provide a viable route to an evolution-driven synthetic life.