Albert Erives

Albert Erives (born March 4, 1972) is a biologist, who proposed the pacRNA model for the joint origin of the genetic code and universal homochirality. He is also known for several findings in evolution, developmental biology and gene regulation. He has worked at the California Institute of Technology; University of California, Berkeley; Dartmouth College; and is currently a professor at the University of Iowa.

Proto-anti-codon RNA (pacRNA)
With his pacRNA model, Erives unified two fundamental unsolved problems in biology and then showed how both would have the same solution. These two fundamental questions regarded the evolutionary origins of universal homochirality and the genetic code. The model also strongly implies that early RNA world was immediately an aminoacylated RNA world and that proteinogenic amino acids arose because of this intrinsic relation between nucleotides and a limited set of "biogenic" amino acids. The pacRNA model explicitly lists possible interactions between various anti-codon di-nucleotide and tri-nucleotide sequences and specific amino acids. When the nucleotides are D-ribose based, L-amino acids are preferred.

Morphogen gradient systems
Erives and colleagues provided the first ever molecular and evolutionary description of how different morphogen gradient responses are encoded in DNA sequence. Morphogen gradient systems are a core fundamental subject of developmental biology. Models of how morphogen gradient responses were encoded had previously been proposed but had not been tested at the genomic level nor across a set of functionally-related enhancers.