Miller, Stanley Lloyd (1930–2007)

US chemist. In the early 1950s, under laboratory conditions, he tried to recreate the formation of life on Earth. He added an electrical discharge to water under a gas mixture of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. After a week he found that amino acids, the ingredients of protein, had been formed.

Miller made his experiment while working for his PhD under Harold Urey, using the components that had been proposed for the Earth's primitive atmosphere by Urey and Russian biochemist Alexandr Oparin. The electrical discharge simulated the likely type of energy source.

Miller was born in Oakland, California, and studied at the universities of California and Chicago. From 1960 he held appointments at the University of California in San Diego, rising to professor of chemistry.