Cell membranes comprise a chemically diverse set of phospholipids. In bacteria and eukaryotes, cell membranes are made predominantly of complex phospholipids bearing 2amino alcohol motifs (e.g. choline, ethanolamine, and serine), the compositional and functional diversity of which influence their properties, including protein binding, substrate transport, and cell signalling. Due to their ubiquitous role in compartmentalization, phospholipids are thought to have appeared on Earth before the advent of cells capable of Darwinian evolution. Still, prebiotic synthetic pathways that could have led to the diverse array of phospholipids present in modern membranes remain largely unexplored.