In a study recently published in the journal Chem, respected origin-of-life chemists from Scripps Research and Georgia Tech put forth a new theory about the origin of the first sugars, integral to the evolution of life, on primitive Earth. They postulated that essential sugars required for creating primordial life forms might have been a result of reactions with glyoxylate (C2HO3–), a fairly basic chemical that plausibly existed on Earth before life evolved. The co-author of the study is Charles Liotta, Regents' Professor Emeritus in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.