Minimal self-replicating systems

Examples of chemical systems capable of templating and catalysing their own synthesis-self-replicating systems-have begun to appear in the chemical li terature over the last 15 years. For the biologist, these systems represent a link with the origin of life-their study can shed light on prebiotic che mical evolution. However, for the synthetic chemist, they represent the ult imate synthetic machine, capable of templating the production of a large nu mber of perfect copies of themselves from a single original molecule. In th is Review, we describe the design and synthesis of synthetic minimal replic ating systems and provide a general overview and critique of the field.