NIH-funded scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder have demonstrated that a five-nucleotide-long ribozyme can catalyze a key reaction needed to synthesize proteins, bearing implications for the origin of life on Earth. Their findings, published in a recent PNAS article, present further evidence that the first catalytic macromolecules could have been RNA molecules. Since they are simpler than protein-based enzymes, they “were likely to exist early in the formation of the first life forms, and are capable of catalyzing chemical reactions without proteins being present,” said Tom Blumenthal, a professor and chair of the Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology department at CU Boulder in which the study was conducted.