Principles of Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the application of chemistry to the study of biological processes at the cellular and molecular level. It emerged as a distinct discipline around the beginning of the 20th century when scientists combined chemistry, physiology and biology to investigate the chemistry of living systems. In the mid 1900s, biochemistry and its presence in the scientific world increased as feats in medicine, microbiology, and nutrition, not to mention war time efforts, dictated the need to understand the underlying processes behind life. This meant the study of how large chemical molecules like carbohydrates, lipids, and amino acids function in terms of structure and interactions within a living system. This led to studies in protein function and structure, which would later give scientists an understanding of nucleic acids in the later part of the 20th century allowing for the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, discovered by James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. Biochemistry has become the foundation for understanding all biological processes. In general, biochemistry explains the processes of life and how chemical interactions support life. Biochemistry is everywhere. When discussing topics in biochemistry, it is important to understand that if you have an interest in any ‘ology,’ it has roots directly or indirectly in biochemistry. General topics in biochemistry include: medicine, nutrition, molecular biology and plant and animal biology. Medicine is a broad category but relates to biochemistry on many levels. Doctors and nurses give drugs to patients to help cure a disease or prevent it. This is due to the fact that when that drug is added to the human system, it alters how other chemicals in the body function, resulting in disease prevention or recovery. Every time a vaccination is injected into a human it prevents disease because biochemically the body already thinks that the disease has been there. Nutrition is a category of biochemistry that is very important to all life on the planet. All life needs a certain amount of amino acids, carbohydrates, fats, lipids and proteins to survive. These compounds are either consumed or fabricated by the organism to provide cellular structure, energy and other chemicals to survive. It has provided explanations for the causes of many diseases in humans, animals and plants. It can frequently suggest ways by which such diseases may be treated or cured.