Extended Molecular Evolutionary Biology: Artificial Life Bridging the Gap Between Chemistry and Biology

Molecular evolution provides an ample field for the extension of Nature's principles towards novel applications. Several examples are discussed here, among them are evolution in the test tube, nucleotide chemistry with new base pairs and new backbones, enzyme-free replication of polynucleotides and template chemistry aiming at replicating structures that have nothing in common with the molecules from nature.