Aleksandr Oparin

Aleksandr Oparin (born Feb. 18 [March 2, New Style], 1894, Uglich, near Moscow, Russia—died April 21, 1980) was a Russian biochemist noted for his studies on the origin of life from chemical matter. By drawing on the insights of chemistry, he extended the Darwinian theory of evolution backward in time to explain how simple organic and inorganic materials might have combined into complex organic compounds and how the latter might have formed the primordial organism.

When Oparin was nine, his family moved to Moscow because there was no secondary school in their village. While majoring in plant physiology at Moscow State University, Oparin was influenced by K.A. Timiryazev, a Russian plant physiologist, who had known the English naturalist Charles Darwin. The indirect effect of Darwin upon Oparin’s thinking can be found in many of the latter’s writings.

In his postdoctoral days Oparin was influenced also by A.N. Bakh, a botanist. Bakh left Russia at the time of the Revolution but later returned. Despite the financial difficulties of the times, the Soviet government established a biochemical institute in his honour in 1935 in Moscow; Oparin helped to found it and served as its director until his death.

At a meeting of the Russian Botanical Society in the spring of 1922, Oparin first introduced his concept of a primordial organism arising in a brew of already formed organic compounds. He stated a number of premises that were not popular at the time. For example, according to his hypothesis, the earliest organisms were heterotrophic; i.e., they obtained their nutrition ready-made from compounds that had already been formed in variety and profusion by what are in the laboratory quite ordinary means. Thus, at that early stage, these first organisms did not need to synthesize their own food materials in the way that present-day plants do. Oparin also emphasized that a high degree of structural and functional organization is characteristic of the living state, a point of view that is in opposition to the idea that “life” is essentially molecular. He was also farsighted in his observation that living organisms, as open systems, must receive energy and materials from outside themselves; they cannot, therefore, be limited by the second law of thermodynamics, which is applicable to closed systems in which energy is not replenished.

When Oparin first proposed his hypothesis, the prevailing view was that the first organisms could make all of their own organic compounds, and so the negative reaction to his proposal was almost universal. With continued retesting, however, his concept has come to be accepted in its main outlines. Although the possibility of a natural origin of life had been promulgated for at least 2,500 years, a specific formulation had to compete with vitalistic points of view in modern times. Also, organic chemistry, necessary for Oparin’s hypothesis, had not been sufficiently developed by the time of the 19th-century French pathologist Louis Pasteur.

Oparin’s various novel premises can be shown to be closely related to one another. What had been missing was (1) an explanation of how populations of large, complex molecules of largely predetermined structure could have arisen in contrast with the widely held view that the first proteins would have been random in structure and (2) an adequate explanation of how a first cell-like system might reproduce. When experimental answers to these questions arose from another laboratory, Oparin acknowledged them in a forthright manner. These answers consisted essentially of (1) ordered coupling of amino acids due to their differing shapes and distribution of electric charge and (2) the formation of buds on microscopic droplets followed by growth of separated buds and cyclical repetition of the process. In attempting to test his basic hypothesis, Oparin dealt with coacervate droplets, which are microscopic units assembled typically from gelatin and gum arabic, as models of early cells. His experiments showed that enzymes (biological catalysts) could function more efficiently within the boundaries of these artificial cells than they could in ordinary aqueous solution. This demonstration helped emphasize the fact that complete cells are important for the action of enzymes and metabolism.

The heterotrophic hypothesis for the origin of life has gained wide attention through Oparin’s efforts. He organized the first international meeting of the origin of life in Moscow in 1957 at which representatives from 16 countries participated. A second conference was held in 1963 and a third in Pont-à-Mousson, Fr., in 1970. Oparin’s definitive work is The Origin of Life on Earth, 3rd rev. ed. (1957).

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Although he is best known for his contributions to studies of the origin of life, Oparin also devoted considerable effort to enzymology and to the closely related subject of industrial biochemistry. His wide interests are reflected in the title of the volume prepared in honour of his 70th birthday, Problems in Evolutionary and Industrial Biochemistry. But throughout the 1970s, the centre of his interest remained at the A.N. Bakh Institute, where, under his direction, a number of research workers were concerned with the problems of the origin of life. Oparin received many decorations, including the Order of Lenin, Hero of Socialist Labour, the Bakh Prize, the Kalinga Prize, and the Mechnikov Gold Medal.