Günter Wächtershäuser (born 1938 in

Gießen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the German state () of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 university students. Th ...

) is a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

turned patent lawyer who is widely known for his work on the

origin of life Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arises from abiotic component, non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to organism, living entities on ...

, and in particular his '' iron-sulfur world theory'', a theory that life on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

has

hydrothermal Hydrothermal circulation in its most general sense is the circulation of hot water (Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, ''water'',Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with th ...

origins. The hypothesis proposes that early life may have formed on the surface of

iron sulfide Iron sulfide or iron sulphide can refer to range of chemical compounds composed of iron and sulfur. Minerals By increasing order of stability: * Iron(II) sulfide, FeS * Greigite, Fe3S4 (cubic) * Pyrrhotite, Fe1−xS (where x = 0 to 0.2) (monocli ...

minerals, hence the name. It was developed by

retrodiction Retrodiction is the act of making a prediction about the past. It is also known as postdiction (but this should not be confused with the use of the term in criticisms of parapsychological research). Activity The activity of retrodiction (or po ...

from extant biochemistry in conjunction with chemical experiments. The theory is consistent with the hypothesis that life originated near seafloor

hydrothermal vent Hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hot ...

s. He was encouraged and supported by science philosopher Karl R. Popper to publish his ideas. Drwachteshauser1-signed

Biographical background

Wächtershäuser, a chemist by training, has been an international patent lawyer in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

since 1970. He has published numerous articles in

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

genetic engineering Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of Genetic engineering techniques, technologies used to change the genet ...

and

patent law A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

, and has made contributions to evolutionary theory concerning the origins of perception and cognition, and the origin of life.

"Metabolism first"

One of the key ideas advanced by Wächtershäuser is that an early form of

metabolism Metabolism (, from ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the co ...

predated

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

. Metabolism here means a cycle of chemical reactions that produce energy in a form that can be harnessed by other processes. The idea is that once a primitive metabolic cycle was established, it began to produce ever more complex compounds. His model is known as the iron-sulfur world theory by analogy with the

RNA world hypothesis The RNA world is a hypothetical stage in the evolutionary history of life on Earth in which self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins. The term also refers to the hypothesis that posits the existence of ...

Awards

In 1993, Wächtershäuser received the annual award of the

Bavarian Academy of Sciences The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities () is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject. The general goal of th ...

and the following year he was made an

honorary professor Honorary titles (professor, president, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as ...

at the

University of Regensburg The University of Regensburg () is a public research university located in the city of Regensburg, Germany. The university was founded on 18 July 1962 by the Landtag of Bavaria as the fourth full-fledged university in Bavaria. Following groundbr ...

. In 1999, Wächtershäuser received the

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

Chemistry Award and in 2008 he was made an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

Publications

Evolution of the First Metabolic Cycles.
''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 87, January 1990, 200–204 * The origin of life and its methodological challenge. ''J Theor Biol'' 187, 1997, 483–494.

In: ''Science'' 289(5483), 25. August 2000, S. 1307–1308
From pre-cells to Eukarya – a tale of two lipids.
In: ''Molecular Microbiology'' 47(1), January 2003, 13–22, doi:10.1046/j.1365-2958.2003.03267.x
From volcanic origins of chemoautotrophic life to Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya.
In: ''Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences'' 361(1474), 29. October 2006, 1787–1808, doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1904
The Place of RNA in the Origin and Early Evolution of the Genetic Machinery.
''Life'' 4, 19. December 2014, 1050–1091, doi:10.3390/life4041050
In Praise of Error.
In: ''Journal of Molecular Evolution'' 82, 14. January 2016, 75–80, doi:10.1007/s00239-015-9727-3

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wachtershauser, Gunter 1938 births Living people 20th-century German chemists 20th-century German lawyers Patent attorneys People from Giessen Critical rationalists 20th-century German writers People from the People's State of Hesse 20th-century German male writers