Joan Oro

Joan Oró was a Spanish biochemist and astrobiologist who made significant contributions to the field of origins of life. He was born in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, on October 26, 1923. He studied chemistry at the University of Barcelona and moved to the United States in 1952, where he obtained his PhD in biochemistry from Houston University in 1956. He became a full professor at the University of Houston in 1963 and founded and directed the department of biochemistry and biophysics. One of his most important achievements was the prebiotic synthesis of adenine, a key component of nucleic acids, from hydrogen cyanide in 1959. He also showed that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could be formed from hydrogen cyanide and ammonia in an aqueous solution. These experiments demonstrated that life on Earth could have emerged spontaneously from simple molecules under plausible conditions. His results were published in 1963 and received widespread attention as they challenged the religious views on the origin of life. ¹ Oró was also interested in the possibility of life on other planets. He collaborated with NASA on several space missions, including the Apollo mission to the Moon and the Viking mission to Mars. He was involved in the analysis of lunar rocks and Martian soil samples, looking for traces of organic molecules or microbial activity. He also found amino acids in meteorites and proposed that comets could have delivered organic compounds to Earth and other worlds. He was one of the first scientists to use mass spectrometry as a tool for astrobiology. ¹² Oró was also active in political and social issues. He returned to Catalonia after the death of Franco and was elected to the Catalan parliament in 1980 for the conservative nationalist coalition Convergència i Unió. He also served as a science advisor for many US projects and committees, including those related to the International Space Station and the future missions to Mars. He defended passionately the value of space exploration for scientific, economic, and environmental reasons. He believed that space programs had not only transformed the world economy, stimulating robotics and the microchip revolution, but also led to humans seeing our planet as small, fragile, and of finite resources, thus promoting conservation and peace. ² He received many honors and awards for his scientific work, including the Oparin Medal from the International Astrobiology Society in 1986. He was named Marquess of Oró by Royal Decree in 2003. He died of cancer in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, on September 2, 2004. He is survived by his second wife Antonieta Juliu and four children from his first marriage. ¹²