Leslie Orgel

A biochemist who studied the origins of life on primitive Earth. His studies helped lead the way to a now widely accepted theory about the development of DNA. Orgel, along with Francis Crick and Carl Woese, proposed that RNA serves an elemental role in creating genetic information, eventually allowing organisms to replicate. In a 1974 book, “The Origins of Life on the Earth,” Orgel and Stanley Miller explored this idea known as “RNA world theory” more deeply. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1990 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences.