What is Biochemistry?
Biochemistry combines biology and chemistry to study life at a molecular and cellular level, delving into the building blocks and processes that sustain life.
Biochemistry is a laboratory-based science in which chemistry is used to understand and explore biological processes both at molecular and cellular levels. Thus, biochemistry is not only a chemical but also a life science implying that the basic concepts of biophysics, cell and molecular biology, genetics, microbiology, immunology and physiology are used to understand the chemical events within, and related to, living systems. While using chemical knowledge and advanced techniques, biochemists pursue the exciting and challenging goal of understanding and solving biological problems. How?
• Suggesting new hypothesis to understand life, health and disease;
• Providing experimental approaches to tackle novel and disruptive ideas in research and development of innovative biotech and clinical approaches;
• Being part of multidisciplinary teams including chemists, biologists, physicians, engineers among others;
• Contributing to the progress of scientific knowledge and technology in different working environments.
The name Biochemistry was first mentioned in 1903 by a German chemist called Carl Neuberg (1877 -1956), who discovered carboxylase and elucidated the alcoholic fermentation that was shown to be a process of successive enzymatic steps. These findings opened science to the knowledge as to how metabolic pathways would be investigated by others later on. However, research within the interface areas of biology and chemistry began much earlier, even before the 19th century, with studies relating to the chemical processes that take place within living cells. Modern biochemistry developed from what in the 19th and early 20th century was called physiological chemistry, which dealt more with extracellular chemistry, such as the chemistry of digestion and body fluids. During the latter part of the 19th century, there were important contributions to the elucidation of the chemistry of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. During this period, some very fundamental aspects of enzymology were investigated. The study of nucleic acids is central to the understanding of life, but its fusion with biochemistry began with work by Fredrick Sanger and Har Gobind Khurana. Their experiments involved a blend of enzymology and chemistry that few would have thought possible to combine. In the 1990s, research focused on finding the structural details of the cell. The field of molecular biochemistry was also rapidly evolving, and the introduction of PCR was a landmark, enabling molecular biochemistry to get off the bench and help establish better diagnosis, management and therapies for various diseases, the latter through the introduction of gene therapy.
Biochemistry is thus essential to understanding the molecular mechanisms of health and disease, advancing health and well-being, as well as developing new products in different areas of Industry (e.g., chemical, pharmaceutical, food, biotechnology and cosmetics).
Biochemistry is concerned with:
• processes that occur at the molecular and cellular levels and studies the biomolecules that make up organelles and cells and how they are formed and degraded;
• the processes by which cells obtain energy;
• the mechanisms of intra- and intercellular communication, for example during physiological events, as growth and pathological disorders, as cancer development;
• understanding how the structure of a molecule relates to its function, and thus predicting how molecules will interact;
• the use of biological processes to generate new consumer goods and promote the use renewable raw materials, reducing the environmental footprint and making the process more economical.