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News from ICTP 106 - Features - Life in a Bottle
ICTP's origins-of-life conference attracted many of the world's most eminent scientists in the field, including numerous researchers from the developing world.
A standing ovation greeted Stanley
L. Miller following his lecture delivered on 16 September at ICTP's
7th Conference on Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life.
Confined to his wheelchair by a double stroke and speaking with
painful difficulty, the 73-years-old chemist, now professor emeritus
at the University of San Diego, California, USA, offered a personal
account of his seminal origins-of-life experiment in the autumn
of 1952, in which he synthesised several amino acids (the 'building
blocks' of proteins) in prebiotic conditions.
The experiment marked the first successful laboratory experiment
illustrating the chemical origin of life, which transformed the
field from philosophical speculations to hard science.
At the time Miller was just a 23-years-old graduate student at
the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA, where he was inspired
by a recent lecture given by his mentor, Nobel Laureate Harold
C. Urey (1893 - 1981). The goal of Miller's experiment was to
recreate, in a laboratory setting, the Earth's early oceanic-atmospheric
ecosystem, which was presumably taking shape around 4 billion
years ago, as the scorching temperatures and searing winds following
our planet's formation began to subside.
To create this micro-environment, Miller subjected a mixture of
methane, ammonia, water vapour and hydrogen to an electrical spark
continuously for a few days. What Miller detected in the flask
startled him: faint residues of protolife amino acid glycine.
Eager to broaden his findings, he then repeated the experiment
over a week-long period. What he then detected startled him even
more: an oily material had formed along the lining of the flask
that was embedded with several amino acids.
Encouraged by Urey, Miller submitted an article describing his
findings to Science. Plainly titled "A Production
of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions,"
the article was published in the 15 May 1953 edition of the journal.
It didn't take long for the scientific community to realise the
profound implications of his experiment.
The silver plaque that ICTP director K.R. Sreenivasan gave to
Miller to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his historic article
elegantly displays the scheme of the spark-discharge apparatus
that produced for the first time organic molecules in a test tube.
The apparatus itself has come to symbolise the 'origins' of origins-of-life
research.
Today, the world of astrobiology that Miller has been instrumental
in creating concerns itself with a wide range of scientific explorations
that extend from the mundane confines of scientific laboratories
to the most remote and exotic corners of our planet and universe.
These explorations, for example, include tabletop experiments
like Miller's, seeking to recreate conditions where life takes
hold; examinations of volcanic ocean beds where stressful ecological
conditions may resemble those of the earliest days of Earth; explorations
of such planets and satellites as Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa
in search of harrowing ecosystems where primitive life may still
exist and, in fact, may have originated; and a blending of chemical
and biological investigations to examine--both through experimentation
and modelling--how inorganic material can, under certain conditions,
be transformed into organic material.
More than 120 people from 28 different nations attended ICTP's
conference. Among them were many of the most renowned scientists
in the field of astrobiology/bioastronomy, a rapidly evolving,
interdisciplinary initiative that draws on research in astronomy,
radioastronomy, planetary science, molecular biology, ecology,
chemistry, geology and oceanography.
Among the participants were these 'star-studded' scientists:
- Frank Drake, founder and president of the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI) Institute, Mountain View, California, USA,
which seeks to determine whether other distant life forms exist
in the universe by scanning the skies with Earth-bound radiotelescopes
for faint discernible radiowaves that may have been produced and
broadcast by other beings.
- Michel Mayor, professor at Observatoire de Geneve, in
Switzerland, who in 1995 discovered the first non-solar system
planet orbiting a distant star, indicating that other planetary
systems anchored by their own stars--just as ours is anchored
by the Sun--could exist elsewhere in the vast reaches of space.
- Rosalind Grymes, deputy director, US National Aeronautics and
Space Administration's (NASA) Astrobiology Institute (NAI), in
Washington, DC, a partnership between NASA and 16 leading institutions
in the United States that focusses on interdisciplinary research
in the field of astrobiology.
- Torrence Johnson, lead project scientist at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for the Galileo spacecraft,
which spent eight years in orbit around the solar system's most
massive planet, Jupiter, and its four main moons. The Galileo
spacecraft, which was named after the famed Italian astronomer
who discovered Jupiter's moons in 1610, gathered a wealth of information
about these distant celestial bodies, suggesting that primitive
life could indeed exist beneath the icy crust of Jupiter's largest
moon, Europa. Galileo's successful mission ended just three days
after the close of ICTP's conference. All told, Galileo travelled
some 4.6 billion kilometres in space, opening up a distant, once-dark
world to scientific exploration and discovery.
ICTP's series of conferences on the origin of life began in 1992
under the able leadership of the late Cyril Ponnamperuma, an internationally
renowned biochemist from the University of Maryland, USA, who
was born in Sri Lanka. Today, the triennial conferences are largely
organised by ICTP's staff scientist Julian Chela-Flores, who works
closely with Tobias Owen, professor of planetary science at the
University of Hawaii, USA, and François Raulin, director
of Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systemes Atmospheriques
(LISA), Paris, France.
"While there are other astrobiology conferences that have
gained an international reputation over the past decade, including
the Exo/Astrobiology Network Association (EANA) held in Europe
each year since 2001," notes Chela-Flores, "the triennial
event at ICTP has emerged as one of the world's most noteworthy
global gatherings of experts in the field."
Chela-Flores adds that "Not only have we been able to attract
the world's greatest researchers, but we have designed the conference
in ways that make it a seminal event for astrobiologists from
the developing world. About one-third of the participants this
year came from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And, with such
countries as Brazil, China and India showing keen interest in
space programmes and cutting-edge biological research, including
origins-of-life research, the involvement of scientists from developing
countries is bound to grow in the years ahead."
THE THIRD WORLD AND THE WORLD BEYOND
As president of the International Society for the Study of the
Origin of Life (ISSOL), I have witnessed first-hand the intense
interest that issues related to the origin of life generate among
scientists in the developing world.
Eminent scientists from India and Mexico are devoting their careers
to this issue; regional groups in the South dedicated to the topic
are as active and rigorous as their counterparts in the North;
and gifted young scientists from the South continue to flock to
the field despite limited funding and job opportunities.
Why is this so? Doesn't the developing world face enough problems
in the here and now not to be investing resources and brain power
to the then and there? Shouldn't its scientists be more concerned
about examining how to improve the well-being of people today
than in understanding how life began?
On behalf of my fellow 'origins-of-life' scientists in the South,
let me try to answer these critical questions.
First of all, we pursue this topic because it is clear that the
extraordinary development of biological sciences during the past
few decades has made it necessary to examine not only the mechanisms
by which life evolved, but how it originated. On the one hand,
such pursuits are motivated by a scientist's enduring desire to
know what is not known; on the other hand, seeking answers to
origins-of-life questions could have a profound impact on broad
areas of biology, chemistry and physics that lie beyond the subfield
itself.
Second, we pursue this topic because, although one may contend
that countries with severe economic and social problems should
devote their meagre resources to applied science, the debate over
applied science versus pure science is a false one: There is only
good science and bad science, and clearly each nation has an obligation
to embrace the former in all fields of inquiry.
Third, we pursue this topic because nurturing a scientific tradition
in developing countries, regardless of the issue under investigation,
helps in the long run to forge a science-based cultural identity.
Developing countries should be seen not just as potential sources
of good researchers for developed nations, but as extraordinary
intellectual reservoirs for the advancement of global science.
The importance of such endeavours for the entire world is obvious:
Although science is universal, different scientific traditions
and cultural backgrounds represent a vital resource for the advancement
of science.
In contrast to what happens in the USA, where creationists continually
challenge the teaching and study of evolution for religious reasons,
such groups are not found in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Despite our problems, we still adhere to the 19th century liberal
belief that education and knowledge are the driving force in individual
and social development.
Moreover, in some cases, the appeal of problems like those of
the origin of life is deeply rooted. In Mexico, for example, Alfonso
L. Herrera, a distinguished naturalist who played a major role
in teaching and the founding of museums, worked for many decades
developing a theory on the origin of life. Such stories testify
to the interest and devotion that scientists in our countries
have shown for this topic. For them and those who have followed
in their footsteps, the question is not why--but how.
Antonio Lazcano
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Mexico City
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