Origin of Life

This volume is a record of the 6th International Conference on the Origins of Life and the 3rd Meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life. The conference was held under the auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities at Jerusalem from June 22nd to June 27th 1980. A few weeks prior to the conference, Academician Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin passed away. Oparin, the father and founder of the study of the origins of life, proposed over 50 years ago that modern biological molecules had abidogical origins in the past, thus the beginning of life on Earth was preceded by a long period of abiogenic molecular evolution. Oparin was planning to report on his latest work in the opening session of the meeting - "Natural Selection: A Leading Factor in Transition from the Non-Living Matter to Life". This lecture will never be delivered. In Hebrew we say of those who have died "may their memory be bound with the bonds of eternal life". For Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin those words have particular significance, for surely his pioneering work will endure as long as the spirit of scientific enquiry prevails. This meeting was dedicated to the memory of Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin.