David W. Deamer from the University of California Santa Cruz presented at London Calling 2025 on “Oxford Nanopore sequencing: a way to explore life’s origin.” Deamer started with a quote from Charles Darwin speculating on the origin life. An alternative, Deamer shared, is an evaporating puddle on Mount Mutnovsky in Mamchatka, Russia. Evaporation of a puddle here can result in the concentration of solutes. Deamer claimed that “prebiotic analogues” such as volcanic areas can produce sterile sties. Petropavlovsk and Mt. Koryatsky has sites that contain hydrothermal springs. Deamer and team sampled a fumarole to analyze mud from a boiling mud pot. The self-assembly process in the boiling pool at pH 3 was analyzed and reported. Deamer described a model for the synthesis of DNA and RNA. The homemade DIY hot spring was assembled in Deamer’s lab. MS and nanopore sequencing were used to analyze the results. Oligomers were sequenced on a PromethION flow cell. Deamer proposed this alternative explanation and spoke about how the use of nanopore sequencing can help provide insights.
