Oparin, Aleksandr Ivanovich

Born Feb. 18 (Mar. 2), 1894, in Uglich. Soviet biochemist. Founder of a scientific theory on the origin of terrestrial life. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946; corresponding member, 1939). Hero of Socialist Labor (1969).

Oparin graduated from Moscow University in 1917 and subsequently worked in a number of institutions of higher learning and research institutes. From 1942 to 1960 he was head of the subdepartment of plant biochemistry at Moscow University. In 1935, together with A. N. Bakh, Oparin organized the Institute of Biochemistry at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He was deputy director of the institute until 1946, when he was made director. From 1948 to 1955 he was academician-secretary of the department of biology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Oparin’s main works deal with biochemical principles of processing plant raw materials, enzyme activity in plants, and the origin of life on earth. He showed that biocatalysis is the basis of the production of a number of food products, and he developed the principles of Soviet technical biochemistry. Oparin’s first remarks on the origin of terrestrial life were made in 1922, and his book The Origin of Life was published in 1924. According to Oparin, life originated on earth as a result of the evolution of carbonaceous compounds.

Oparin became the president of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life in 1970, and he has been its honorary president since 1977; he also is an honorary member of the academies of sciences of Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, Cuba, Spain, and Italy. He is also a member of the Leopoldine German Academy of Researchers in the Natural Sciences. A recipient of the Lenin Prize (1974), the A. N. Bakh Prize, and the I. I. Mechnikov Gold Medal, he has been awarded five Orders of Lenin, two other Soviet orders, and several foreign orders and medals.