ChemOrigins: a community-curated database for origins-of-life chemistry

Abstract The origin of life is one of the most compelling questions in science. While experimental prebiotic chemistry has produced a wide range of reactions and plausible pathways, the resulting data remain fragmented across numerous publications and disciplinary journals. Here, we introduce ChemOrigins, an open access, community-curated knowledge graph that organizes experimentally supported prebiotic reactions. By representing molecules, reactions, conditions and literature sources as interconnected nodes, ChemOrigins enables modular grouping of reactions and supports complex, query-driven exploration via a graph database architecture. We demonstrate the utility of this framework through text-based searches, reaction network expansions and the interactive visualization of user-annotated chemical modules. Unlike generative models, ChemOrigins prioritizes curated, evidence-based content and fosters community contributions through expert annotations and a user-friendly interface. As a structured resource, ChemOrigins is designed to complement existing chemical databases and serve as a foundation for computational, educational and theoretical research in the origins-of-life field.