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Cohoes High student study finds ribose degrades under high‑pressure, high‑temperature conditions in lab simulations
Summary
Shay Fontaine presented experimental work testing ribose stability in simulated impact‑generated hydrothermal systems and reported significant decomposition at 80°C and 500 bar compared with ambient controls, suggesting ribose may be less resilient in post‑impact niches.
Shay Fontaine, a Cohoes High School senior, presented laboratory experiments testing the stability of ribose—a sugar essential to RNA—under temperature and pressure conditions intended to mimic impact‑generated hydrothermal systems.
Fontaine prepared 15 millimolar ribose solutions in triplicate and placed sealed syringes into a fixed‑volume stainless steel pressure vessel pressurized to 500 bar and held at 80°C for seven days. She compared those samples to a room‑temperature control (about 64–74°F at 1 bar) and a temperature‑only control held at 80°C at 1 bar.
The study’s key finding was that ribose concentration fell from an initial 15 mM to about 4 mM in the high‑pressure, high‑temperature samples, while the room‑temperature control declined to approximately 10 mM and the temperature‑only control to about 9 mM. Fontaine summarized these results as showing “ribose remains relatively stable at room temperature, but degrades significantly under high temperature and pressure such as those found in impact generated hydrothermal systems.”
Fontaine said the experimental setup used triplicates for accuracy, a butyl rubber stopper to prevent syringe leakage in the pressure vessel and UV‑visible spectrophotometry with a calibration curve to quantify residual ribose after exposure. She attributed the greater loss of ribose primarily to pressure, since the temperature‑only control showed less decomposition than the pressurized samples.
In her interpretation, the results suggest that although meteorite impacts could deliver organic molecules to early Earth, the survivability of ribose in post‑impact hydrothermal conditions may be limited and that ribose’s role in early biochemistry could require accumulation or formation in milder niches.
Fontaine recommended further experiments across a broader range of organic compounds and environmental conditions to better understand chemical pathways relevant to the origin of life. Her mentor on the project was Karen Rogers of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Fontaine will attend Union College in the fall.
The presentation included procedural details and visuals of the pressure vessel and calibration curve; Fontaine acknowledged that some measurements and instrument calibrations were done with assistance from her PhD co‑worker Mary Guerrero Perez.
