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Harold Urey lecturing to a class in the '50s. It was at a lecture like this that Stanley Miller first heard about the idea of synthesizing organic molecules in a pre-biotic world.
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Harold Urey examining results, 1950.
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Apparatus used by Stanley Miller in the synthesis of organic molecules.
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Stanley Miller, 1997.
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Thomas Cech, 1998. Cech became president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute on January 1, 2000.
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Sidney Altmann, 1989.
Audio Glossary
Amino acids, Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), Double helix, Messenger RNA (mRNA), Ribonucleic acid (RNA)Video Interviews
Ray Gesteland is a Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics in the Department of Human Genetics at the Eccles Institute, University of Utah. His research is on RNA, specifically secondary structures in RNA that can provide additional coding information.
Clip 1 (0:59)
RNA function -- the code within the code.
Clip 2 (1:08)
Why DNA was probably not the driving force of molecular evolution in a pre-biotic environment.
Clip 3 (0:26)
RNA "instability."
Clip 4 (1:20)
Differences between DNA and RNA and the evolutionary roles carried out by each molecule.
Clip 5 (0:54)
The pre-biotic soup of life and the need to increase molecular concentrations.
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey demonstrated that organic molecules can be synthesized under prebiotic conditions. Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman discovered that RNA can have enzymatic activities. For this discovery, they shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. STANLEY LLOYD MILLER (1930-)
Stanley Miller was born in Oakland, California. According to Miller, a scientific career was an easy choice to make since he grew up in the era of scientific discoveries. Miller graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. He then went to the University of Chicago to do graduate work. He attended a seminar Harold Urey gave on the origins of the solar system. Urey presented the idea of organic molecules being synthesized in a primitive Earth atmosphere. When Miller was looking for a thesis project, he remembered this idea and approached Urey. Initially reluctant to put a graduate student on such a risky project, Urey agreed to a six-month trial. Miller designed an apparatus and used it to simulate the conditions on Earth before life appeared. Once the conditions were worked out, Miller quickly got results and synthesized many of the simple organic molecules necessary for life. Miller published his results in Science in 1953; his name was the only one on the paper. Urey did not want his name on the paper as he felt that Miller did all the work. After graduating in 1954, Miller did a post-doc at the California Institute of Technology. From 1955-1960 he was an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Columbia University. He then accepted a position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego where he is now a full professor. He has co-authored a book, The Origin of Life on Earth. His research interests focus on pre-biotic synthesis of nucleotides as well as alternative backbones to ribose phosphate in the first genetic material of the pre-RNA world. THOMAS ROBERT CECH (1947-)
Thomas (Tom) Cech was born in Chicago and grew up in Iowa City. His father was an M.D. and his mother was a homemaker. As a child, Cech collected rocks and minerals and would "talk" science with his father and professors at the University of Iowa. Throughout high school, Cech was more interested in academics than sports. In 1966, Cech went to Grinnell College to study chemistry - a subject he really enjoyed. College was a real eye-opener as he met others who were just as excited about academics as he was. He would have stayed in chemistry, but as an undergraduate, Cech worked at Argonne National Laboratory and at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. These research experiences made him realize that it just took too long to gather meaningful data for a chemistry experiment. In 1970, Cech headed for the University of California at Berkeley for graduate work. Here he discovered the world of molecular biology. As he says, he "was thrilled with the much more rapid interplay between idea and experimental test that was possible in this field," and he "became committed to the interface between molecular biology and chemistry." Cech finished his Ph.D. thesis on DNA chromosome structure and then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for post doctoral work. In 1978, Cech accepted a position in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder. It was here that he and his research group did the work leading to the discovery that RNA can self-splice and thus can act as a ribozyme. For this discovery, Cech shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Sidney Altman. In 1988, Cech became an Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and in 2000, assumed duties as the President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Among his many honors and awards, Cech received the 1995 National Medal of Science. Cech enjoys spending time with his family and outdoor activities like running and skiing. He also likes to cook - still a chemist at heart. | |
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LinksThe Double Life of RNAThis site has video clips from Dr. Thomas Cech's 1995 lecture about RNA given at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Cosmic AncestryThis site has articles, references, and theories relating to the origin of life and whether life could have come to Earth from outer space. There is an updated What's New page with interesting science facts. Scientists Debate RNA's Role at the Beginning of Life on EarthThis 1997 story was published in The Scientist. It introduces most of the scientists currently working in the field of RNA as the first genetic molecule. The Genetics of Human EvolutionAn interview with Alan Weiner and Nancy Maisels. Both are molecular biologists at Yale University with an interest in the origins of life. The interview is posted on the DNA Files, a web site from the National Public Radio. An Interview with Dr. Stanley MillerA 1996 interview with Dr. Stanley Miller about exobiology. Posted on the Access Excellence site. Bibliography
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