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Recent efforts to develop biocompatible and environmentally-friendly nanomaterials have yielded many biosynthetic methods for producing metallic nanoparticles which employ organisms from almost every branch of life. However, little progress has yet been made regarding the underlying mechanisms of most of these biosynthetic methods. In an attempt to address this gap in a knowledge, we have investigated the nanoparticle-producing ability of the ubiquitous biomolecule nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), and have found that this coenzyme alone is sufficient to reduce Au3+ ion to gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in vitro. Synthesis using this method occurs nearly instantaneously at room temperature and produces uniformly spherical plasmonic nanoparticles with small sizes (<10 nm diameter). Both the speed of synthesis and the monodispersity of the produced GNPs are advantages over many other biosynthetic methods. As NADH is a universal component of all living things, our finding also suggests that this coenzyme may contribute to - or be wholly responsible for - some of the many previously- reported syntheses of GNPs by biological systems.