Prebiotic synthesis of adenine from hydrogen cyanide (Oró)
Síntesis prebiótica de adenina a partir de cianuro de hidrógeno (Oró)
- Date
- 1959-1962 · confidence high
- Place
- Houston, Texas, United States
- Credited to
- Joan Oró
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Joan Oró obtained adenine, one of the nucleic-acid bases, by heating a concentrated solution of ammonium cyanide in water. He showed that the building blocks of RNA and DNA could form under plausible prebiotic conditions and proposed that comets delivered organic compounds to the early Earth.
Oró was then working at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and published the result in 1960-1961; the exact location (Baylor/University of Houston) is approximate. It complements the Miller-Urey experiment (1953), with which it is considered a pillar of prebiotic chemistry.
What it led to
- prebiotic chemistry of hydrogen cyanide and nucleotides
- the hypothesis of delivery of organic matter by comets
- Oró's participation in the Viking probes' biology experiments (1976)