Xiwen Jia

This study examines how 2'-deoxyribo-purine substitutions affect RNA duplex stability and nonenzymatic template-directed primer extension.

This study shows prebiotic isocyanide chemistry activates RNA building blocks, enabling both nonenzymatic and ribozyme-catalyzed RNA ligation, supporting a unified model for RNA assembly on early Earth.

This paper investigates a primordial genetic alphabet using 2-thiouridine (s2U), 2-thiocytidine (s2C), inosine (I), and adenine (A), showing that their base pairs are isoenergetic and isomorphic, enabling balanced nucleotide incorporation in nonenzymatic RNA copying.

This study investigates whether replacing adenine with diaminopurine in nonenzymatic RNA template copying improves efficiency and reduces bias.

This study investigates non-templated primer extension with alternative nucleotides to determine if RNA synthesis was biased against threo-nucleotides.