A simulation for finding the origings of life

The only thing that I'm aware of without Googling for it is Stanley Miller's experiments back in the 50's.

 

It wouldn't surprise me at all if someone is doing it; I just haven't heard of it. It seems like a job that BOINC should take on for "distributed computing" (I work on SETI, Einstein @ Home, a global climate model, and about 4 other projects). In fact, maybe they have taken it on and that's how you learned of it. I haven't checked what they're up to recently because the stuff that I'm already doing is demanding enough.

edit: corrected a name

 

Perhaps it's this one you were thinking of?
http://www.evogrid.org/index.php/Main_Page
Seems pretty dead, though.

 

With the help of fatty acids. The subject is called abiogenesis. Skip to 3:48 for the good stuff

 

As to your original question, I hadn't heard of it, but doing some googling, I found this paper that models abiogenesis in terms of fuel cells, which is an interesting idea:

• The fuel cell model of abiogenesis: a new approach to origin-of-life simulations.
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24621309/

I also found this press release about using supercomputers to simulate abiogenesis:

• Powerful supercomputer peers into the origin of life
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004151725.htm

Here's the actual research:

• Magnesium-Dependent Active-Site Conformational Selection in the Diels−Alderase Ribozyme
• http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja101370e

 

While reading through an article at C&EN, I think I found the study you're looking for:
Wang et al. 2014. Discovering chemistry with an ab initio nanoreactor. Nat. Chem 6: 1044. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2099 [Broken]

See also this writeup of the research from C&EN: http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i45/Simulation-Technique-Finds-Reaction-Products.html