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