Stanley Miller

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This article is about the American chemist. For the American artist of the same name, see Stanley Mouse.
Stanley Miller
Jeffrey Bada

Stanley Lloyd Miller (March 7, 1930 – May 20, 2007) was an American chemist who made important experiments concerning the

inorganic substances. In 1952 he performed the Miller–Urey experiment, which showed that complex organic molecules could be synthesised from inorganic precursors. The experiment was widely reported, and provided evidence for the idea that the chemical evolution of the early Earth had caused the natural synthesis of organic compounds from inanimate inorganic molecules.[1] [2][3]

Life and career

Stanley Miller was born in

University of California at Berkeley to study chemistry mainly because he felt that Donald would be able to help him with the topic. He completed his BSC in June 1951. He then had financial problems, as his father died in 1946 leaving the family with a money shortage. With the help from Berkeley faculty (UC Berkeley did not then have assistantships), he was offered a teaching assistantship at the University of Chicago
in February 1951, which could provide the basic funds for graduate work.

Miller enrolled in the University of Chicago PhD program in September 1951. He searched frantically for a thesis topic, meeting various professors, and he preferred theoretical problems as experiments tended to be laborious. He was initially convinced to work with the theoretical physicist Edward Teller on synthesis of elements. Conforming to the custom of the university, such that a graduate student is obliged to attend seminars, he attended a chemistry seminar in which the Nobel laureate Harold Urey gave a lecture on the origin of solar system and how organic synthesis could be possible in a reducing environment such as the primitive Earth's atmosphere. Miller was immensely inspired.

After a year of fruitless work with Teller, and the prospect of Teller leaving Chicago to work on the hydrogen bomb, Miller was approached by Urey in September 1952 for a fresh research project. Urey was not immediately enthusiastic on Miller's interest in pre-biotic synthesis, as no successful work had been done, and he even suggested working on thallium in meteorites. With persistence Miller persuaded Urey to experiment with electric discharges in gases.

The experiments found evidence for the production of amino acids in the reaction vessel. He was always afraid that some specks of fly excrement might be the source of the amino acids he discovered in the reaction tube (or was so chided by his classmates). This was not the case and the result was a demonstration that many "organic" chemical compounds could be produced by purely inorganic processes. Miller eventually earned his doctorate degree in 1954, and a long-lasting reputation.[5] From spectroscopic observations of stars, it is now well known that complex organic compounds are formed in the gases blown off of carbon rich stars as a result of chemical reactions. The fundamental issue of what is the association between "pre-biotic organic" compounds and the origin of life has remained.

After completing a

University of California at San Diego was established, he became the first assistant professor of the Department of Chemistry in 1960, and an associate professor in 1962, and then a full Professor in 1968.[2][3]

He supervised 8 PhD students including Jeffrey L. Bada.[6] He also co-authored the book "The Origin of Life on Earth."[7]

Miller's experiment

Main article:
Urey-Miller experiment

The Miller experiment was described in his technical paper in the 15 May 1953 issue of

gamma-amino butyric acid, but was not confident about them. Since amino acids are the basic structural and functional constituents of cellular life, the experiment showed the possibility of natural organic synthesis for the origin of life on earth.[10][11]

Publication problem

Miller showed his results to Urey, who suggested immediate publication. Urey refused to be the co-author lest Miller receive little or no credit. The manuscript with Miller as the sole author was submitted to the magazine Science on 10 February 1953. After waiting several weeks, Urey inquired and wrote to the chairman of the editorial board on 27 February on the lack of action in reviewing the manuscript. A month passed, but still there was no decision. On 10 March the infuriated Urey demanded the manuscript to be returned, and he himself submitted it to the Journal of the American Chemical Society on 13 March. By then, the editor of Science, apparently annoyed by Urey's insinuation, wrote directly to Miller that the manuscript was to be published. Miller then withdrew the manuscript from the Journal of the American Chemical Society.[12]

Follow-up

Miller continued his research until his death in 2007. As the knowledge of the Earth's early atmosphere progressed, and techniques for chemical analyses improved, he continued to refine the details and methods. He succeeded not only in synthesizing more and more varieties of amino acids, he also produced a wide variety of inorganic and organic compounds essential for cellular construction and metabolism.[13] In support, a number of independent researchers also confirmed the range of chemical syntheses.[14][15][16][17] With the recent revelation that, unlike the original Miller's experimental hypothesis of a strongly reducing condition, the primitive atmosphere could have been quite neutral, containing other gases in different proportions.[18] Miller's last works, published posthumously in 2008, still succeeded in synthesizing an array of organic compounds using such conditions.[19]

Reassessment

In 1972 Miller and his collaborators repeated the 1953 experiment, but with newly developed automatic chemical analysers, such as

ion-exchange chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. They synthesized 33 amino acids, including 10 that are known to occur naturally in organisms. These included all of the primary alpha-amino acids found in the Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia in 1969.[20] A subsequent electric discharge experiment actually produced more variety of amino acids than that in the meteorite.[21]

Just before Miller's death, several boxes containing vials of dried residues were found among his laboratory materials in the university. A note indicated that some were from his original 1952-1954 experiments, produced by using three different apparatuses, and one from 1958, which included

hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the gaseous mixture for the first time, a result which was never published. In 2008 his students re-analysed the 1952 samples using more sensitive techniques, such as high-performance liquid chromatography
and liquid chromatography–time of flight mass spectrometry. Their result showed the synthesis of 22 amino acids and 5 amines, revealing that the original Miller experiment produced many more compounds than actually reported in 1953.[22] The unreported 1958 samples were analysed in 2011, from which 23 amino acids and 4 amines, including 7 sulfurous compounds, were detected.[1][23][24][25]

Death

Miller suffered a series of strokes beginning in November 1999 that increasingly inhibited his physical activity. He was living in a nursing home in National City, south of San Diego, and died on 20 May 2007 at the nearby Paradise Hospital. He was survived by his brother Donald and his family, and his devoted partner Maria Morris.[10]

Honours and recognitions

Miller is remembered for his work concerning the origin of life (and he was considered a pioneer of the topics of

anaesthesia. He was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 1973. He was an Honorary Counselor of Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Research in 1973. He was awarded the Oparin Medal by the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life in 1983, and served as its president from 1986 to 1989.[10]

He was nominated for Nobel Prize more than once during his life.[26]

The Stanley L. Miller Award for scientists younger than the age of 37 was instituted by the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life in 2008.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 12230177
    .
  2. ^ a b Bada JL, Lazcano A. Stanley L. Miller (1930-2007): A Biographical Memoir (PDF). National Academy of Sciences (USA). pp. 1–40. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-10.
  3. ^
    S2CID 1167340
    .
  4. ^ "Biography 26: Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930 - ) :: CSHL DNA Learning Center". dnalc.cshl.edu. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
  5. ^ "Biography 26: Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930 - ) :: CSHL DNA Learning Center". dnalc.cshl.edu. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
  6. ^ "Stanley Lloyd Miller, Ph.D." Academic Tree. The Academic Family Tree. Retrieved 13 October 2018.
  7. ^ "Biography 26: Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930 - ) :: CSHL DNA Learning Center". dnalc.cshl.edu. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
  8. S2CID 38897285
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  9. PMID 11932715
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  10. ^ a b c UCSD News Center (21 May 2007). "Father of 'Origin of Life' Chemistry at UC San Diego Dies". ucsdnews.ucsd.edu. University of California, San Diego. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  11. S2CID 19515024
    .
  12. S2CID 93020326
    .
  13. PMID 11542054
    .
  14. PMID 13320416
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  15. PMID 11542466
    .
  16. PMID 11537766
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  17. PMID 22733315
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  18. PMID 20573713
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  19. S2CID 7731172
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  20. PMID 4501592
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  21. PMID 16591973
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  22. S2CID 10134423
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  23. PMID 21422282.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  24. Wired Magazine
    . Retrieved March 22, 2011.
  25. ^ Steigerwald, Bill (October 16, 2008). "Volcanoes May Have Provided Sparks and Chemistry for First Life". NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Retrieved March 22, 2011.
  26. ^ Chi KR (24 May 2007). "Stanley L. Miller dies". The Scientist. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  27. ^ Astrobiology (6 March 2008). "Stanley L. Miller Award". astrobiology2.arc.nasa.gov. NASA. Archived from the original on 4 March 2013. Retrieved 2013-07-03.

External links

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