Bern, Switzerland

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Biochemie und Molekularbiologie

Bachelor's
Language: GermanStudies in German
Subject area: biology
University website: www.unibe.ch/
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. By controlling information flow through biochemical signaling and the flow of chemical energy through metabolism, biochemical processes give rise to the complexity of life. Over the last decades of the 20th century, biochemistry has become so successful at explaining living processes that now almost all areas of the life sciences from botany to medicine to genetics are engaged in biochemical research. Today, the main focus of pure biochemistry is on understanding how biological molecules give rise to the processes that occur within living cells, which in turn relates greatly to the study and understanding of tissues, organs, and whole organisms—that is, all of biology.
Biology
Biology is the natural science that involves the study of life and living organisms, including their physical structure, chemical composition, function, development and evolution. Modern biology is a vast field, composed of many branches. Despite the broad scope and the complexity of the science, there are certain unifying concepts that consolidate it into a single, coherent field. Biology recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity, and evolution as the engine that propels the creation of new species. Living organisms are open systems that survive by transforming energy and decreasing their local entropy to maintain a stable and vital condition defined as homeostasis. See glossary of biology.
Molecular Biology
Molecular biology is a branch of biochemistry which concerns the molecular basis of biological activity between biomolecules in the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between DNA, RNA, and proteins and their biosynthesis, as well as the regulation of these interactions. Writing in Nature in 1961, William Astbury described molecular biology as:
Biology
Biology is Engineering.
Daniel Dennett (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Biology
Biology is not physics, because organisms are such complex physical objects, and sociology is not biology because human societies are made by self-conscious organisms. By pretending to a kind of knowledge that it cannot achieve, social science can only engender the scorn of natural scientists and the cynicism of the humanists.
Richard Lewontin (1995) "Sex, Lies, and Social Science" in New York Review of Books (4/20/95)
Biology
Today, the central and still fascinating questions for biologists concern the mechanisms by which evolution occurs."
Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology 5th ed. 1989, Worth Publishers, p. 972
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