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Knowledge and ideas in the life sciences
I. Great ideas in the life sciences
II. Life as chemistry
III. Medical chemistry
The cell
The cell
• Unit of life
• 100 trillion in a human
Antony von Leeuwenhoek(1632-1723)
Discovery of microbes, of cells as living things
Genes
Gregor Mendel(1822-1884)
Genes as units of heredity
Evolution
through natural selection
Charles Darwin(1809-1882)
Life as chemistry
Louis Pasteur(1822-1895)
Germ theory of disease, fermentation
Vitalism
• Inorganic material – component of inanimate objects
• Organic material – product of a “vital force,” present only in living things?
Life as chemistry
• Fermentation in a yeas extract, Edouard Buchner, 1893
• Enzymes “the vital force”
The flow of genetic information
DNA(genes)
RNA(message)
Protein
DNA
Transcription by RNApolymerase
The flow of genetic information
DNA(genes)
RNA(message)
Protein
RNA
Transcription by RNApolymerase
The flow of genetic information
DNA(genes)
RNA(message)
Protein
Protein
10 years, 10,000 liters, 1 grad student
3-D RNA Polymerase Crystals
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
Proteins 10
Atoms 28,378
The RNA polymerase structure
Biomedical science
• Major advances: for example X-rays, antibiotics, noninvasive imaging, genetic engineering
• The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake
• Solve problems indirectly
Wilhelm Roentgen
X-rays
Alexander Fleming Howard Florey Ernst Chain
Penicillin
The nature of discovery
• The pursuit of fundamental principles
• The product of untargeted research
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