"The Center for Interstellar Catalysis aims to discover the origin and evolution of the molecular building blocks of life - amino acids, nucleobases, sugars and fatty acids – in space"
As of 2025, close to 330 different molecules have been detected in interstellar space, with more added to the list each year. In our solar system the simplest amino acid, glycine, has been observed in comets, and meteorites routinely deliver a wide variety of the molecular building blocks of life to the surface of our planet. InterCat set out to determine the catalytic role of icy grain surfaces in the formation of the molecular building blocks of life in space and to address whether their synthesis predates the formation of new stars and planets. With access to the earliest James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data, low temperature surface science techniques and new machine learning (ML) approaches, we have explored low temperature ice and dust structures, discovered non-diffusive, radical-driven formation pathways to amino acids and dust grain erosion reactions that lead to fatty acid formation.
"Could it be possible to form the molecualr building blocks of life in cold interstellar molecular clouds – even before the formation of stars and planetary systems?
If formed, would they be inherited through the different stages of star formation and end up in protoplanetary disks, and maybe even as parts of comets and meteorites?"
Novel JWST observations show an increasing complexity of interstellar molecular ices and dust, and explore the role of such complex ices and grain surfaces in the formation of the molecular building blocks of life. We will also aim to determine how energetic processing drives chemical evolution by providing both destruction and formation pathways, potentially leading to chiral selectivity and the build-up of larger biological units, such as peptides. We combine data from JWST with sensitive gas-phase observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to reveal the molecular interplay between gas and ice during the evolution from interstellar clouds to protoplanetary disks.
InterCat works towards our research goals by bringing together leading observational, computational and experimental groups within the fields of astrochemistry and surface science to determine whether the molecular building blocks of life can form in the low temperature solid phase, before the formation of new stars and planetary systems, and survive, and perhaps evolve in complexity, during the transition from clouds to protoplanetary disks. In conjunction, the InterCat team provide the necessary access to some of the strongest observational programs on JWST and ALMA; unique, custom built experimental setups – AU Chiralice, AU UVice, AU IR-STM and UL SURFRESIDE3 - aimed at studying low temperature astrochemical reactions and energetic processing under interstellar conditions; and cuttingedge ab initio and machine learning-based calculations and models (using, e.g., the AGOX framework) of interstellar ice and dust structures, and astrochemical reactions.
This combination allows for atomic and molecular level interpretations of experimental results via theoretical simulations, while ensuring that the systems studied adhere to the real constraints and characteristics of interstellar dust, molecular clouds and protoplanetary discs, as determined by JWST and ALMA observations.
InterCat Research takes place within the framework of three research themes. These themes shape our efforts to meet the InterCat research targets.
• Target-1: determine where abundant simple and complex organic molecules (COMs) and salts, including their isotopologues, are formed and map their abundances and evolution via correlated ice and gas phase observations using JWST and ALMA.
• Target-2: determine the existence of a general pathway to amino acid formation beyond glycine, synthesized from observed COMs under low temperature interstellar conditions
• Target-3: obtain extensive understanding of fatty acid formation via erosion reactions on carbonaceous dust grains and via reactions involving alkanes, alkenes, alkynes and aromatics, and relate these to observed carbon-carrying dust and molecules
• Target-4: demonstrate sugar formation via H and HCO radical addition to glycolaldehyde, including characterization of the resulting isomers and preservation of chirality in each reaction step, under low temperature interstellar conditions
• Target-5: explore top-down and bottom-up pathways to nucleobase formation
• Target-6: follow the evolution of the molecular building blocks of life under energetic processing in low temperature interstellar ices in terms of destruction pathways, energy driven formation of even more complex molecular species such as peptides, and the emergence of chiral asymmetry due to enantioselective photo-processes.
