Leslie Orgel
Encyclopedia
Leslie Eleazer Orgel FRS (12 January 1927 – 27 October 2007) was a British
chemist
.
Born in London, England, Orgel received his B.A. in chemistry with first class honours from Oxford University
in 1949. In 1950 he was elected a Fellow
of Magdalen College
and in 1951 was awarded his Ph.D
in chemistry at Oxford.
Orgel started his career as a theoretical
inorganic
chemist and continued his studies in this field at Oxford, the California Institute of Technology
and the University of Chicago
.
Together with Sydney Brenner
, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Beryl M. Oughton he was one of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA
, constructed by Francis Crick
and James Watson
, at the time he and the other scientists were working at Oxford University's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick; Orgel himself also worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
.
In 1955 he joined the chemistry department at Cambridge University
. There he did work in transition metal
chemistry, published articles and wrote a textbook entitled Transition Metal Chemistry: Ligand Field Theory (1960).
In 1964 Orgel was appointed Senior Fellow and Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he directed the Chemical Evolution Laboratory. He was also an adjunct professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego
, and he was one of five principal investigators in the NASA
-sponsored NSCORT program in exobiology
. Orgel also participated in NASA's Viking
Mars Lander Program as a member of the Molecular Analysis Team that designed the gas chromatography mass spectrometer
instrument that robots took to the planet Mars
.
Orgel’s lab came across an economical way to make cytarabine, a compound that is one of today’s most commonly used anti-cancer agents.
During the 1970s, Orgel suggested reconsidering the Panspermia hypothesis, according to which the earliest forms of life on earth did not originate here, but arrived from outer space
with meteorite
s.
Together with Stanley Miller
, Orgel also suggested that peptide nucleic acids - rather than ribonucleic acids - constituted the first pre-biotic
systems capable of self-replication
on early Earth
.
His name is popularly known because of Orgel's rule
s, credited to him, particularly Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution
is cleverer than you are".
In his book The Origins of Life, Orgel coined the concept of specified complexity
, to describe the criterion by which living organisms are distinguished from non-living matter. He published over three hundred articles in his research areas.
Orgel died of cancer on 27 October 2007 at the San Diego Hospice & Palliative Care in San Diego, California
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
.
Born in London, England, Orgel received his B.A. in chemistry with first class honours from Oxford University
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in 1949. In 1950 he was elected a Fellow
Research fellow
The title of research fellow is used to denote a research position at a university or similar institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a principal investigator...
of Magdalen College
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
and in 1951 was awarded his Ph.D
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in chemistry at Oxford.
Orgel started his career as a theoretical
Theoretical chemistry
Theoretical chemistry seeks to provide theories that explain chemical observations. Often, it uses mathematical and computational methods that, at times, require advanced knowledge. Quantum chemistry, the application of quantum mechanics to the understanding of valency, is a major component of...
inorganic
Inorganic chemistry
Inorganic chemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the properties and behavior of inorganic compounds. This field covers all chemical compounds except the myriad organic compounds , which are the subjects of organic chemistry...
chemist and continued his studies in this field at Oxford, the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
and the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
.
Together with Sydney Brenner
Sydney Brenner
Sydney Brenner, CH FRS is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with H...
, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Beryl M. Oughton he was one of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, constructed by Francis Crick
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson...
and James Watson
James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick...
, at the time he and the other scientists were working at Oxford University's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick; Orgel himself also worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a premier independent, non-profit, scientific research institute located in La Jolla, California. It was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among the founding consultants were Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick. Building...
.
In 1955 he joined the chemistry department at Cambridge University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
. There he did work in transition metal
Transition metal
The term transition metal has two possible meanings:*The IUPAC definition states that a transition metal is "an element whose atom has an incomplete d sub-shell, or which can give rise to cations with an incomplete d sub-shell." Group 12 elements are not transition metals in this definition.*Some...
chemistry, published articles and wrote a textbook entitled Transition Metal Chemistry: Ligand Field Theory (1960).
In 1964 Orgel was appointed Senior Fellow and Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he directed the Chemical Evolution Laboratory. He was also an adjunct professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
, and he was one of five principal investigators in the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
-sponsored NSCORT program in exobiology
Astrobiology
Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System, the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry,...
. Orgel also participated in NASA's Viking
Viking program
The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts, an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface...
Mars Lander Program as a member of the Molecular Analysis Team that designed the gas chromatography mass spectrometer
Mass spectrometry
Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique that measures the mass-to-charge ratio of charged particles.It is used for determining masses of particles, for determining the elemental composition of a sample or molecule, and for elucidating the chemical structures of molecules, such as peptides and...
instrument that robots took to the planet Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
.
Orgel’s lab came across an economical way to make cytarabine, a compound that is one of today’s most commonly used anti-cancer agents.
During the 1970s, Orgel suggested reconsidering the Panspermia hypothesis, according to which the earliest forms of life on earth did not originate here, but arrived from outer space
Outer space
Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....
with meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
s.
Together with Stanley Miller
Stanley Miller
Stanley Lloyd Miller was an American chemist and biologist who is known for his studies into the origin of life, particularly the Miller–Urey experiment which demonstrated that organic compounds can be created by fairly simple physical processes from inorganic substances...
, Orgel also suggested that peptide nucleic acids - rather than ribonucleic acids - constituted the first pre-biotic
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
systems capable of self-replication
Self-replication
Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical copy of that dynamical system. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and can be transmitted to offspring during reproduction...
on early Earth
Early Earth
The "Early Earth" is a term usually defined as Earth's first billion years, or gigayear. On the geologic time scale, the "early Earth" comprises all of the Hadean eon , as well as the Eoarchean and part of the Paleoarchean eras of the Archean eon.This period of Earth's history, being its earliest,...
.
His name is popularly known because of Orgel's rule
Orgel's rule
Orgel's rules are a set of axioms attributed to the evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel.-Orgel's First Rule:"Whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or too inefficient a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient."...
s, credited to him, particularly Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
is cleverer than you are".
In his book The Origins of Life, Orgel coined the concept of specified complexity
Specified complexity
Specified complexity is an argument proposed by William Dembski and used by him and others to promote intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept is intended to formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both specified and complex...
, to describe the criterion by which living organisms are distinguished from non-living matter. He published over three hundred articles in his research areas.
Orgel died of cancer on 27 October 2007 at the San Diego Hospice & Palliative Care in San Diego, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Awards
- National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
- Fellow of the Royal Society of London
- American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
Publications
- Leslie E. Orgel, An Introduction to Transition-Metal Chemistry. The Ligand Field Theory, 1961
- Leslie E. Orgel, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection, 1973
- Leslie E. Orgel and Stanley L. Miller, The Origins of Life on the Earth, 1974
External links
- Leslie Orgel's Paper Register at UCSD
- The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth
- Leslie Orgel's obituary on the Salk Institute website
- LA Times: "Leslie Orgel, 80; chemist was father of the RNA world theory of the origin of life", October 31, 2007
- "Leslie Orgel dies", The ScientistThe ScientistThe Scientist: Magazine of Life Sciences is a professional magazine intended for life scientists. Coverage includes reviews of widely noticed research papers, informing its audience of current research, updates to technology, updates to career information, profiles of scientists achieving...
, 1 November 2007