Researchers at the Salk Institute have developed a small polymerase ribozyme using controlled laboratory evolution spanning about 10 years. This ribozyme can synthesize copies of other RNA molecules, including itself and its complementary strand. It contains key mutations that increase the accuracy of RNA copying. In experiments, he copied functional "hammerhead ribozymes", small RNA molecules that cleave other RNAs. The ribozyme precisely replicated these hammerheads, and new variants of them were gradually created. This discovery supports the RNA world hypothesis of the origin of life, where RNA served as both an information medium and a catalyst. The study was published in the journal Science (Vol. 391, No. 6789, pp. 1022–1028, March 2026).[1]