Biology in Credo: Biochemistry

Science concerned chiefly with the chemistry of biological processes.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia:
Application of various methods and principles of physical science to the study of biological problems.

Scientific discoveries in molecular biology in the early 1970s helped launch the knowledge-intensive field of biotechnology. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines biotechnology as “The application of Science and Technology to living organisms as well as parts, products and models thereof, to alter living or nonliving materials for the production of knowledge, goods and services.”

An enzyme which breaks down (hydrolyzes) starch, the reserve carbohydrate in plants, and glycogen, the reserve carbohydrate in animals, into reducing fermentable sugars, mainly maltose, and reducing nonfermentable or slowly fermentable dextrins.

In plant and animal cells, a process in which energy is released from food molecules such as glucose without requiring oxygen. Some aerobic plants and animals are able to use anaerobic respiration for short periods of time.

Substance that prevents or slows the breakdown of another substance by oxygen. In the body, nutrients such as beta-carotene (a vitamin A precursor), vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium have been found to act as antioxidants.

Virus that infects bacteria and sometimes destroys them by lysis, or dissolution of the cell.

Total mass of living organisms present in a given area. It may be used to describe the mass of a particular species (such as earthworm biomass), for a general category (such as herbivore biomass - animals that eat plants), or for everything in a habitat.

In biology, the exchange of carbon between living organisms and the nonliving environment.

Any one of a group of relatively small organic molecules required for the catalytic function of certain enzymes.

Biological catalyst. The term enzyme comes from zymosis, the Greek word for fermentation, a process accomplished by yeast cells and long known to the brewing industry, which occupied the attention of many 19th-century chemists.

Process by which the living cell is able to obtain energy through the breakdown of glucose and other simple sugar molecules without requiring oxygen. Fermentation is achieved by somewhat different chemical sequences in different species of organisms.

Substance containing some or all of a range of about 20 chemical elements necessary for healthy plant growth, used to compensate for the deficiencies of poor or depleted soil.

In biology, a chemical secretion of the ductless endocrine glands and specialized nerve cells (see neurohormones) concerned with control of body functions.

US physician and chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 for his research concerning channels in cell membranes and in particular for his discovery of water channels.

German biochemist: Nobel prize for medicine (1939) for isolating sulphanilamide for treating bacterial infections.

American biochemist. He shared a 1972 Nobel Prize for research on the chemical structure and nature of antibodies.

German-born US biochemist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1922 for his work in determining the relationship between oxygen consumption and the metabolism of lactic acid in muscle.

Argentinian-born British immunologist. He shared a 1984 Nobel Prize for developing a method of producing monoclonal antibodies.

French biochemist. He shared a 1965 Nobel Prize for the study of regulatory activity in body cells.

American biochemist. He shared a 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry for devising the polymerase chain reaction technique, which is used in genetic engineering studies to make trillions of copies of a single fragment of DNA in a very short time.

Spanish-born US biochemist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for the discovery of enzymes that catalyse the formation of RNA (ribonucleic acid), in 1955, and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).

British biochemist, born in Austria; determined the structure of haemoglobin; shared the 1962 Nobel prize for chemistry with John Kendrew.

English biochemist who worked out the sequence of amino acids in various protein molecules. For his work on insulin he was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

British-born Canadian biochemist who developed a method for making a specific genetic mutation at any spot on a DNA molecule. He shared a 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

British biochemist who improved paper chromatography (a means of separating mixtures) to the point where individual amino acids could be identified. He shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1952 with his colleague Archer Martin for the development in 1944 of the technique known as partition chromatography.

English biochemist and Nobel Prize winner He was born in Halifax and studied at St Catherine's College, Oxford.