Origin of Life

Disproving Spontaneous Generation In 1668, Francesco Redi , an Italian physician, did an experiment with flies and wide-mouth jars containing meat Objection: Microorganisms arose by spontaneous generation (John Nedham, (1713-1781)

Lazzaro Spallanzani’s (1765) Objection: Prolonged heating killed life force required for generation of life as well as remove oxygen

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

Hypothesis of Panspermia (Richter, 1865; Helmholtz, 1884; Van, 1891) Objection: Could not get much scientific proof

Miller experiment (Stanley Miller, 1953) Organic compund synthesized Alanine Aspartic acid Glycine Glutamic acid Valine Leucine And HCN was also synthesized

Synthesis of Protenoids (Sydney Fox, 1964) Heated mixture of 18 a.a. to temperature of 160-200 0 C and obtained stable protein like macromolecule What arose first? Proteins or Nucleic Acid