Editing Stanley Miller (section)

==Life and career==

Stanley Miller was born in [[Oakland, California]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biography 26: Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930 - ) :: CSHL DNA Learning Center |url=https://dnalc.cshl.edu/view/16584-Biography-26-Stanley-Lloyd-Miller-1930-.html |access-date=2024-01-14 |website=dnalc.cshl.edu}}</ref> He was the second child (after a brother, Donald) of Nathan and Edith Miller, descendants of Jewish immigrants from [[Belarus]] and [[Latvia]]. His father was an [[Lawyer|attorney]] and had the office of the Oakland Deputy District Attorney in 1927. His mother was a school teacher so that education was a natural environment in the family. In fact, while in [[Oakland High School (Oakland, California)|Oakland High School]] he was nicknamed "a chem whiz". He followed his brother to the [[University of California at Berkeley]] to study chemistry mainly because he felt that Donald would be able to help him with the topic. He completed his BSC in June 1951. He then had financial problems: His father died in 1946 and left the family poor. With help from the Berkeley faculty (UC Berkeley did not then grant research assistantships), he received a teaching assistantship at the [[University of Chicago]] in February, 1951. Teaching would provide the basic funds for graduate work. 

Miller enrolled in the University of Chicago PhD program in September 1951. He searched frantically for a thesis topic, met professors, and preferred theoretical problems rather than experiments, which tended to be laborious. He initially worked with the theoretical physicist [[Edward Teller]] on [[Stellar nucleosynthesis|synthesis of elements]]. Conforming to the custom of the university, which was that graduate students attend seminars, he attended a chemistry seminar by Nobel laureate [[Harold Urey]] on the origin of solar system and the idea that organic synthesis was possible in a reducing environment, such as the primitive Earth's atmosphere. Miller was immensely inspired. 

After a year of fruitless work with Teller, and the prospect of Teller's leaving Chicago to work on the hydrogen bomb, Urey approached Miller in September 1952 with a fresh research project. Urey was not immediately enthusiastic about Miller's interest in pre-biotic synthesis: No successful work had been done.  Urey suggested that Miller work on thallium in meteorites. With persistence, Miller persuaded Urey to experiment with electric discharges in gases. 

The experiments found evidence for the production of amino acids in the reaction vessel.  Urey or Miller was afraid that specks of fly excrement might be the source of the amino acids (or was so chided by classmates). Excrement was not the source; the result was a demonstration that "[[Organic compound|organic]]" chemical compounds could be produced by purely inorganic processes. Miller earned a doctorate in 1954, and a long-lasting reputation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biography 26: Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930 - ) :: CSHL DNA Learning Center |url=https://dnalc.cshl.edu/view/16584-Biography-26-Stanley-Lloyd-Miller-1930-.html |access-date=2024-01-14 |website=dnalc.cshl.edu}}</ref> From spectroscopic observations of stars, it is now well known that complex organic compounds form from the gases of carbon-rich stars. The fundamental issue, the connection between "pre-biotic organic" compounds and the origin of life, has remained.

After completing a [[doctorate]], Miller transferred to the [[California Institute of Technology]] as a F. B. Jewett Fellow in 1954 and 1955. Here he worked on the mechanism involved in the synthesis of amino and [[hydroxycarboxylic acid]]s. He then joined the Department of Biochemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, [[Columbia University]], [[New York City|New York]], where he worked for the next five years. When the new [[University of California at San Diego]] was established, he became the first assistant professor of the Department of Chemistry in 1960, and an associate professor in 1962, and then a full Professor in 1968.<ref name=bada/><ref name=lazc/>

He supervised 8 PhD students including [[Jeffrey L. Bada]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Stanley Lloyd Miller, Ph.D. |url=https://academictree.org/chemistry/peopleinfo.php?pid=57084 |website=Academic Tree |publisher=The Academic Family Tree |access-date=13 October 2018}}</ref> He also co-authored the book "The Origin of Life on Earth."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biography 26: Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930 - ) :: CSHL DNA Learning Center |url=https://dnalc.cshl.edu/view/16584-Biography-26-Stanley-Lloyd-Miller-1930-.html |access-date=2024-01-14 |website=dnalc.cshl.edu}}</ref>