Alexander Oparin

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Alexander Oparin : biography

02 March 1894 – 21 April 1980

Oparin outlined a way in which basic organic chemicals might form into microscopic localized systems possible precursors of the Cell from which primitive living things could develop. He cited the work done by de Jong on coacervates and other experimental studies, including his own, into organic chemicals which, in solution, may spontaneously form droplets and layers. Oparin suggested that different types of coacervates might have formed in the Earth’s primordial ocean and been subject to a selection process leading eventually to life.

While Oparin himself was unable to do extensive experiments to investigate any of these ideas, scientists were later able to. In 1953 Stanley Miller performed what is perhaps the first experiment to investigate whether chemical self-organization would have been possible on the early earth. The Miller-Urey experiment showed that from a mixture of several simple components of a reducing atmosphere, with the input only of heat to provide reflux and electrical energy (sparks, to simulate lightning), a variety of familiar organic compounds such as amino acids were synthesised within a fairly short period of time. The compounds that formed were somewhat more complex than the molecules that were present at the beginning of the experiment.

As the molecular structure of DNA and RNA became understood, due to the work of James D. Watson and Francis Crick, the opinion became more widespread among molecular geneticists, that it would take very little time before life could be artificially created: even if it needed to be limited to very simple life forms. They agreed to Oparin’s theory.

The influence of dialectical materialism on Oparin’s theory

The influence of the Marxist theoretical concept of dialectical materialism, part of the Communist Party’s official interpretation of Marxism, fit Oparin’s definition of life as ‘a flow, an exchange, a dialectical unity’. This notion was enforced by Oparin’s association with Lysenko.

Bibliography and references

  • Oparin, A. I. The Origin of Life. Moscow: Moscow Worker publisher, 1924 (in Russian)
    • English translation: Oparin, A. I. The Origin and Development of Life (NASA TTF-488). Washington: D.C.L GPO, 1968
  • Oparin, A. I. The Origin of Life, Moscow 1936
    • English translation: Oparin, A. I. The Origin of Life. New York: Dover (1952) (first translation published in 1938).
  • Oparin, A., Fesenkov, V. Life in the Universe. Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences publisher, 3rd edition, 1956 (in Russian)
    • English translation: Oparin, A., and V. Fesenkov. Life in the Universe. New York: Twayne Publishers (1961).

Notes

Category:1894 births Category:1980 deaths Category:Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour Category:Kalinga Prize recipients Category:Lenin Prize winners Category:Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Category:Moscow State University alumni Category:People from Uglich Category:Russian atheists Category:Russian biochemists Category:Russian biologists Category:Soviet biochemists Category:Soviet biologists