"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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    suee® s s ful. file results which ta?® now been s càie ved have exceeded anything expected even by such Imaginative optimists as Prof. Bernal§ who ranks as one of the Founders ana Prophets of the subject, these are» 1 think three reasons for this very rapid ad'vanee. The sain reason is the comparative simplicity of the basic biological mechanisms and the fact that, with minor variations, they are the same throughout Nature. The genetic information is not conveyed and expressed by a large number of intricate symbols, as in ,Chinese» but in two very simple alpha betical languages. Secondly, because traces of this simplicity coulé be seen at an early stag© it was possible to erect a theoretical scheme which has been an immense help in guiding experimentation. Th® only serious mistake in this scheue - the assumption that the ribosomal HMA was the messenger IIA » was fortunately discovered without an excessive delay. But to my mind the third factor has been of equal importance, this is the very powerful experimental techniques which have become available in the last 25 years or no. without chromatography, ' without radio active tracers, without electrophoresis and the ultracentifuge we could hardly prove any of our surmises, and without X~ray diffraction and the electron microscope our knowledge of three- dimensional structure would scarcely exist. Almost all these techniques involve the application of physical, or physical-oheaical