A Chemical Theory of Spontaneous 

 Generation* 



SIDNEY W. FOX 



Oceanographic Institute, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. 



Suggestions of how life originated by natural means were offered by the 

 Greeks [i], Charles Darwin added to these vague concepts in 1871 [2] one para- 

 graph of chemical prescription for the beginning of hfe. The details of Darwin's 

 paragraph, although inadequate, are in agreement with the most advanced think- 

 ing today. The modern era of thought in this field received great stimulus from 

 the book by Academician Oparin [i], whose pioneering contribution we are 

 privileged to honour at this Symposium. 



In so far as the speaker is aware, serious and informed experimentation in 

 this field began in 195 1 with studies of the effects of high-energy radiation on 

 carbon dioxide and water by Calvin and co-workers [3]. Working with an atmos- 

 phere consisting of ammonia, methane, hydrogen and water, Miller was notably 

 able to produce amino acids by electrical discharge [4]. Amino acids have now 

 been synthesized in so many presvmiably primordial ways in different laboratories 

 that the contention that such results are not intrinsically surprising [5] appears 

 to be broadly supported. There is increasing evidence for the notion that no 

 matter which simple reactants are studied, and no matter which physical con- 

 ditions are tested, organic compounds in the same somewhat narrow range of 

 possibilities will result. 



The prebiochemical distance from such organic compounds as amino acids 

 to the origin of life, however, must be quite large. Unless the first organism did 

 not fit a Kluyverian pattern of biochemical unity [6], the amino acids and other 

 intermediates must have yielded: proteins, nucleic acids and numerous other 

 biochemical substances and reaction pathways, before hfe could emerge from 

 its matrix. Other authors have pointed out the significance of the problem of 

 formation of protein as a component of the problem with which we are con- 

 cerned here [i, 7]. The work to be described in this paper, however, began with 

 an attempt to understand only the prebiochemical origin of protein. The experi- 

 ments yielded a succession of unexpected results and stimuli for new experi- 

 ments such that a unified theory of biochemical origins is emerging. 



The embarkation point for the experiments to be described was the hypo- 

 thesis that peptide bonds might be formed at temperatures elevated enough to 



* Aided by Grants No. H-2314 and RG-4666 of the National Institutes of Health, 

 U.S.A., Public Health Service, and from the General Foods Corporation and the Rocke- 

 feller Foundation. Contribution No. 87 of the Oceanographic Institute of the Florida 

 State University. 



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