Macromolecules and the origin of life

Abstract

From our knowledge of present day organisms, it is hard to imagine a living assembly, even at its most primitive stage, without macromolecules. In order to look for the macromolecules which possibly participated in the assembly of the primitive organisms, the reaction and formation of polymers in HCN under irradiation of ultraviolet ray of 184.9 nm. was studied. As an example of a simple way of producing an assembly of macromolecules, the mechanism of coacrevation was studied by using gelatin as the material.