Alexander Oparin
Soviet biochemist (1894-1980) · Russia · Scientists · Died at 86
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Something wrong?He proposed that life began in a primordial soup - organic molecules assembling in ancient oceans before anything you'd call alive existed. The theory made him one of the first scientists to treat the origin of life as chemistry, not mystery.
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Alexander Ivanovich Oparin was born in Russia on 2 March 1894. A Soviet biochemist, he spent years studying how plant cells process materials and how enzymes work inside them, but his lasting mark came from a different question: how did life start at all? His book *The Origin of Life* laid out the idea that organic compounds formed in early Earth's seas and grew more complex until something crossed the threshold into biology. He also turned that biochemical lens on industry, showing that food production ran on biocatalysis and building the framework for industrial biochemistry across the USSR. He died on 21 April 1980.
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