Juli Peretó. ©Miguel Lorenzo.

Juli Peretó, professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Valencia, gave this Wednesday the inaugural lecture of the 2023-2024 academic year at the University of Lleida, about the biochemist Joan Oró (Lleida, 1923; Barcelona, ​​2004). With the title The chemical dawn of life, Peretó has recalled the contribution of Oró, who demonstrated the synthesis of adenine from hydrogen cyanide and initiated organic cosmochemistry, by proposing that comets would be carriers of water and fundamental ingredients for the origin of life.

Juli Peretó remembers that the Catalan scientist, whose centenary of birth is celebrated this year, is a fundamental figure in the scientific study of the origin of life. Oró worked at the University of Houston, where he founded and directed the Department of Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences. In addition, he also collaborated in several research projects of the United States Space Agency (NASA), including the Apollo program for analyzing rocks and various materials from the Moon and the Viking, to develop an instrument that could analyze the atmosphere and matter of the planet Mars. style="color:#202122">

“Since the beginning of the 1960s, Joan Oró's laboratory made important contributions to prebiotic chemistry, beginning with the demonstration of the synthesis of adenine from hydrogen cyanide – a simple molecule formed by one atom of carbon, one of nitrogen and one of hydrogen, present in interstellar space and produced in electrical discharge experiments like Miller's - Oró's pioneering experiment connected prebiotic chemistry with the origin of the constituents of genetic polymers and, thanks to it, adenine is now a more popular molecule," explains Juli Peretó, also a researcher at Institute of Integrative Systems Biology (I²SysBio), joint center of the University of Valencia and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).

In addition, the Valencian professor recalls that Joan Oró also proposed that comets would be carriers of water and fundamental ingredients for the origin of life “It has long been known that certain asteroids. They contained organic materials and Oró formulated a daring hypothesis that was intensively explored in the following decades: extraterrestrial organic materials, contributed by comets, asteroids and interstellar dust particles, would have contributed to the inventory of raw materials at the origin of life. style="color:black">

The launch of Sputnik, in 1957, triggered the following year the creation of the North American space agency (NASA), which soon considered one of its missions to support studies on the origin of life and the search for life outside Earth. “To a large extent, the initial development of prebiotic chemistry was financed with funds from NASA and the Oró laboratory was a beneficiary, especially for its participation in the Apollo and Viking programs,” explains Juli Peretó. style="text-align:justify">At Wednesday's event, Peretó also recalled the importance of the University of Lleida in the context of the Middle Ages, and how at the birth of the University of Valencia, in 1499, “the Valencian leaders who approved the founding Constitutions, in their LV chapter asked Pope Borja for the “grace or bull to make doctors and bachelors and give any degrees as is done today in the city of Rome, in the Study of Bologna and in Lleida. "That is why it is so gratifying for me to speak at this university today." style="text-align:justify">“Joan Oró was a scientific and humanistic optimist, with great confidence in the future of science. For Oró, a life inserted in cosmic evolution, living beings as an integral part of nature, was an ennobling concept, not an impoverishing one”, concludes Juli Peretó. Roman",serif'>

Currently, the figure and legacy of the Catalan scientist can be known, among others, through the Joan Oró Foundation, based in Lleida, and which promotes scientific dissemination and research. Until next November 5, the Ilerdenses Studies Institute hosts an exhibition that takes a tour of the personal and scientific biography of Joan Oró.

Inaugural lesson of the 2023-2024 academic year at the University of Lleida, by Juli Peretó, here.