Archaea are established as a separate branch in the tree of life next to bacteria. Eukaryotes are no longer considered a distinct and separate branch, but instead they are considered to be recent members of the archaeal branch. While the effect of controlled and synthetic 3D culture environments on a range of eurkaryotic cell types are widely recognized and can be harnessed to learn about and steer specific cell behaviours, application of this concept in archaea is practically non-existent.

The complex problem of the origin of life can be approached from different angles and scientific disciplines: while chemists may attempt to extrapolate from their understanding of self-organization processes in organochemical networks towards the first living systems, biologists may reason ‘from hindsight’, based on their knowledge of extant life and their reconstruction of the most plausible pathways that led to its emergence.

Recent attempts to mimic enzyme catalysis using simple, prebiotically relevant peptides have been successful in enhancing various reactions. However, the on-demand, temporal or spatial regulation of such processes by external triggers remains a great challenge. Light irradiation is an ideal trigger for regulating molecular functionality, since it can be precisely manipulated in time and space, and because most reaction mediums do not react to light.