"Introduction: Recent research in molecular biology"

Date:
1965
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/3/15
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "Introduction: Recent research in molecular biology". Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It is unfortunate that the term Molecular Biology .has two meanings. It can be used in the broad sens® to mean the explanation of any biological phenomenon in terms of atoms and molecules? for example, we could have the Molecular Biology of Animal Behaviour. At the present moment, however, it is mostly used in a narrower sense, mâ is mainly applied to work on proteina and nucleic acids, and especially to studies of gene structure, replication and expression (including therefore protein synthesis and protein structure) which give us information about the molecular details of these processes, That this usage is a real one can easily be seen by noticing what is actually done in laboratories of Molecular Biology, or by people who call themselves Molecular Biologists, and what is published in the Journal of Molecular Biology. The exact meaning of the term, however, is not agreed even by Molecular Biologists themselves, some putting the emphasis on the three-dimensional aspects of the molecules concerned (as opposed to their chemical formulae or the chemical reactions they undergo} while others point out that a new term was needed because it is typical of the subject that a combination of i disciplines are involved, thus Astbury , who was certainly one 1 Astbury, . T. Ç1961) Nature , 190 , 1124