In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Virtual Planetary Lab (VPL) team member (and soon to be UWAB Faculty Member) Sarah Keller and members of her lab, discuss their discovery that Amino Acids (the building blocks of proteins) can bind to fatty acid membranes which helps to stabilize them against salts. Their results demonstrate how cell membranes could have first formed in the high salinity water in shallow volcanic pools or underwater vents present on the early Earth!
Their work has been featured in an article in the Atlantic which you can read here as well as in a UW News article which you can read here.
Or you can read their full paper here.