Research on the origin of life is highly heterogeneous. After a peculiar historical development, it still includes strongly opposed views which potentially hinder progress. In the 1st Interdisciplinary Origin of Life Meeting, early-career researchers gathered to explore the commonalities between theories and approaches, critical divergence points, and expectations for the future. We find that even though classical approaches and theories-e.g. bottom-up and top-down, RNA world vs. metabolism-first-have been prevalent in origin of life research, they are ceasing to be mutually exclusive and they can and should feed integrating approaches. Here we focus on pressing questions and recent developments that bridge the classical disciplines and approaches, and highlight expectations for future endeavours in origin of life research.

Archaea Biology and Ecogenomics Division University of Vienna 1090 Vienna Austria

Cellular and Molecular Biophysics Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry 82152 Martinsried Germany

Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences University of Cologne 50674 Cologne Germany

Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology University of Trento 38123 Trento Italy

Department of Chemistry University of Cambridge Lensfield Road Cambridge CB2 1EW UK

Department of Physical Chemistry University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technicka 5 16628 Prague 6 Dejvice Czech Republic

Department of Plant Systematics Ecology and Theoretical Biology Eötvös Loránd University Pázmány Péter sétány 1 C 1117 Budapest Hungary

Environmental Microbial Genomics Laboratoire Ampère Ecole Centrale de Lyon Université de Lyon 69130 Ecully France

Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften Freie Universität Berlin 12249 Berlin Germany

Institute of Evolution MTA Centre for Ecological Research Klebelsberg Kuno u 3 H 8237 Tihany Hungary

Institute of Molecular Evolution University of Düsseldorf 40225 Düsseldorf Germany

Institute of Synthetic Microbiology University of Düsseldorf 40225 Düsseldorf Germany

Lycée Colbert BP 50620 59208 Tourcoing Cedex France

Origins Center Department of Earth Sciences Utrecht University 3584 CB Utrecht The Netherlands

Quantitative and Theoretical Biology University of Düsseldorf 40225 Düsseldorf Germany

School of Biological and Chemical Sciences Queen Mary University of London London E1 4DQ UK

School of Chemistry University of Glasgow Glasgow G128QQ UK

School of Earth Sciences University of Bristol Bristol BS8 1RL UK

Space Science Center Institute of Climate Change Level 3 Research Complex National University of Malaysia 43600 UKM Bangi Selangor Malaysia

Systems Biophysics Physics Department Ludwig Maximilians Universität München 80799 Munich Germany

UK Centre for Astrobiology School of Chemistry University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH9 3FJ UK

Université de Strasbourg CNRS ISIS 8 allée Gaspard Monge 67000 Strasbourg France

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The interplay between peptides and RNA is critical for protoribosome compartmentalization and stability

Peptides En Route from Prebiotic to Biotic Catalysis

Prebiotic oligomerization and self-assembly of structurally diverse xenobiological monomers