Figure 1.

Synthetic prebiotic chemistry. Miller's experiment (a) provided the first evidence for an abiotic scenario of generation of biologically relevant molecules (image courtesy of Adam Brown). The mixture is heated (1) receives electrical discharges (2) and is condensed in (3). (b) Many different molecules are generated, linked through a reaction network (adapted from [28]). The overall reaction network is similar to in silico networks of reactions in organic chemistry that can be obtained from databases, as shown in (c) where nodes are molecules and connections indicate possible reactions (adapted after [29]).