Humboldt Fellow Dr. Kuhan Chandru

The building blocks of life

How exactly did life on Earth begin? Some aspects of this puzzle are still unresolved. Dr. Kuhan Chandru would like to help crack it. The Malaysian expert in prebiotic chemistry is currently a guest in the working group of Materials Chain member Prof. Christian Mayer Physical Chemistry as a Humboldt Foundation research fellow. For his work, Chandru uses, among other things, a special instrument at the Center for Nanointegration CENIDE.

Dr. Chandru's project focuses on prebiotic chemical spaces – environments filled with various organic molecules that existed before life began. “Interestingly, biomolecules such as proteins, DNA and RNA make up only a small part of these spaces, while many other molecules are more common. Because of this, we think that these non-biomolecules might have played an essential role in early life formation and might also play building block roles in extraterrestrial life,” says Chandru.

But what mechanism once ensured that the right ones were selected from the vast pool of prebiotic molecules? To explore this, Chandru and the Mayer research group use various CENIDE high pressure systems. These include a simulator that replicates a tectonic fault zone. Such zones, located deep in the Earth's crust, are intensely geologically active. This allows gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) to undergo unique transformations, and water and gases mix with various prebiotic compounds. “Recreating the extreme conditions of the early Earth's crust is essential to our work,” says Chandru, pleased with the excellent research conditions at the UDE.

Dr. Kuhan Chandru studied Marine Biology and Environmental Geochemistry in Malaysia and received his doctorate in Advanced Material Chemistry from Yokohama National University (Japan). He then spent several years at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) Tôkyô and at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague (Czech Republic). Since 2018, he has been conducting research at the National University of Malaysia.

https://www.uni-due.de/2024-12-13-humboldt-research-fellow-kuhan-chandru