Lazcano, Antonio

In the same year, Miller and the biologist Antonio Lazcano (National Autonomous University of Mexico) spoke out against hypotheses that life could have originated at hydrothermal vents. They believe that the presence of thermophilic bacteria (the oldest life forms) does not prove that biogenesis occurred in the depths of the oceans. Stanley Miller sees a greater chance for successful pre-biotic chemistry under the conditions of a cold primeval Earth rather than at high temperatures in hydrothermal regions (Miller and Lazcano, 1995). 

A number of colleagues were very kind and helpful with their advice. I would like to thank Antonio Lazcano, and Albert Eschenmoser, who in different ways helped me with their frank comments and Meir Lahav, Joseph Ribo, Jeffrey Bada, and David Deamer. Particular thanks are due to Dr. Pasquale Stano, whose help has been essenhal, particularly, but not only, with the bibliography also Rachel Fajella helped with the editing of some parts of the manuscript. I am also particularly indebted to Angelo Merante for the illustrahons and the formatting of the manuscript without him, the manuscript would shll be in my drawers. Last, but not least, I want to thank my students of the University of Rome 3, their positive feedback at the very early stages of the manuscript was very important. 

Up to now synthetic chemistry has been the dominant part of our reflection. Now synthetic biology comes in to meet the requirements of the sophisticated observer who wants to be informed about the newest development. At any rate, the fundamental question, WHAT IS LIFE comes up. Under this title, two essays have been published one by Erwin Schrodinger [140] in 1944 and the other by J. B. S. Haldane [141] in 1949. While the former focused on the physical aspect of the living cell, the latter considered life essentially as a pattern of chemical processes. A very pragmatic point of view was formulated in 1994 by Antonio Lazcano [142] with the statement Life is like music, you can describe it, but not define. ... 

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