Antonio Lazcano

Antonio Lazcano

Born and educated in Mexico , Antonio Lazcano was trained both as an undergraduate and graduate student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico City), where he is currently Professor and head of a research group devoted to the study of early cellular evolution. He has been engaged for over thirty years in the study of the chemical processes that may have led to the synthesis and accumulation of organic compounds in the primitive Earth and, more recently, on significance of comparative genomics for the reconstruction of very early stages of cell evolution. At the same time, he is deeply interested in the historical development of the ideas and debates on the origin and nature of life and, after calling attention to the growing risk of creationism in Latin American countries, is working on ways of improving education in evolutionary biology in this part of the world.

Prebiotic evolution and origin of life: did all start in a warm little pond?

It is not known how the transition from such a prebiotic broth to the first living entities took place, but the possibility of early replicating and catalytic systems based on RNA and devoid of both proteins and DNA, i.e. the so-called RNA world, has received considerable support with the demonstration of catalytic versatility of ribozymes. Genomic analysis provides important insights on the RNA/protein world which may have followed the RNA world, but the chemical events that may have bridged the gap between the prebiotic broth and the first life forms are completely unknown and can only be surmised.