Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions.
Nucleic acids are large biomolecules that are crucial in all cells and viruses. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomer components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main classes of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). If the sugar is ribose, the polymer is RNA; if the sugar is deoxyribose, a variant of ribose, the polymer is DNA.
In molecular biology, biochips are engineered substrates that can host large numbers of simultaneous biochemical reactions. One of the goals of biochip technology is to efficiently screen large numbers of biological analytes, with potential applications ranging from disease diagnosis to detection of bioterrorism agents. For example, digital microfluidic biochips are under investigation for applications in biomedical fields. In a digital microfluidic biochip, a group of (adjacent) cells in the microfluidic array can be configured to work as storage, functional operations, as well as for transporting fluid droplets dynamically.
Recombinant DNA (rDNA) molecules are DNA molecules formed by laboratory methods of genetic recombination that bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be found in the genome.
Chemical biology is a scientific discipline between the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. Although often confused with biochemistry, which studies the chemistry of biomolecules and regulation of biochemical pathways within and between cells, chemical biology remains distinct by focusing on the application of chemical tools to address biological questions.
Stephen P. A. "Steve" Fodor is a scientist and businessman in the field of DNA microarray technology.
Hugh Esmor Huxley MBE FRS was a British molecular biologist who made important discoveries in the physiology of muscle. He was a graduate in physics from Christ's College, Cambridge. However, his education was interrupted for five years by the Second World War, during which he served in the Royal Air Force. His contribution to development of radar earned him an MBE.
Martin Karplus is an Austrian and American theoretical chemist. He is the Director of the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory, a joint laboratory between the French National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Strasbourg, France. He is also the Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, emeritus at Harvard University. Karplus received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".
Jeremy Mark Berg was founding director of the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Personalized Medicine. He holds positions as Associate Senior Vice Chancellor for Science Strategy and Planning and Professor of Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2016 to 2019, Berg was editor in chief of the Science journals.
Roger Yonchien Tsien was an American biochemist. He was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for his discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, in collaboration with organic chemist Osamu Shimomura and neurobiologist Martin Chalfie. Tsien was also a pioneer of calcium imaging.
Winfried Denk is a German physicist. He built the first two-photon microscope while he was a graduate student in Watt W. Webb's lab at Cornell University, in 1989.
Biophysical chemistry is a physical science that uses the concepts of physics and physical chemistry for the study of biological systems. The most common feature of the research in this subject is to seek an explanation of the various phenomena in biological systems in terms of either the molecules that make up the system or the supra-molecular structure of these systems. Apart from the biological applications, recent research showed progress in the medical field as well.
Richard Paul Haugland was an American scientist noted for his work in researching and commercializing fluorescent dyes. He completed his PhD at Stanford in 1970 under Lubert Stryer, showing in a now widely cited and classic paper that Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) can be used as a "spectroscopic ruler" to measure distances in macromolecules. Haugland founded Molecular Probes in 1975 and continued as its president after the corporation was bought by Invitrogen in 2003. He is the original author of the authoritative volume on molecular probes, The Molecular Probes Handbook, now in its 11th edition.
Gordon G. Hammes is a distinguished service professor of biochemistry, emeritus, at Duke University, professor emeritus at Cornell University, and member of United States National Academy of Sciences. Hammes' research involves the study of enzyme mechanisms and enzyme regulation.
Fluo-3 is a fluorescence indicator of intracellular calcium (Ca2+), developed by Roger Y. Tsien. It is used to measure Ca2+ inside living cells in flow cytometry, and confocal laser scanning microscopy using visible light excitation (compatible with argon laser sources operating at 488 nm). Fluo-3 and derivatives (Fluo-4, Fluo-5 etc) have also been widely used with two-photon excitation microscopy. Fluo-3 is an essentially nonfluorescent compound, but upon binding of Ca2+ its fluorescence increases sharply with an emission maximum at 525 nm suitable for conventionally used detectors designed for fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) measurements. This large change in fluorescence coupled with a good yield of photons provides very high contrast which allowed the detection of microscopic Ca2+ release events inside cells called "Calcium sparks". Whereas the salts of fluo-3 are unable to penetrate cells, loading can be achieved using its acetoxymethyl (AM) ester derivative. Once inside the cell, unspecific esterases cleave the ester effectively trapping fluo-3.
John David Sutherland FRS is a British chemist at Medical Research Council (MRC), Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), Protein & Nucleic Acid Chemistry Division. His work on the possible chemistry of early life has been widely recognised.
Scott A. Strobel is the provost of Yale University as well as a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He was the vice provost for Science Initiatives and vice president for West Campus Planning & Program Development. An educator and researcher, he has led a number of Yale initiatives over the past two decades. Strobel was appointed as Yale's provost in 2020.
Dr. Herbert Weissbach NAS NAI AAM is an American biochemist/molecular biologist.
Jin Zhang is a Chinese-American biochemist. She is a professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry, and biomedical engineering at the University of California, San Diego.
Ervin Fodor is a British virologist of Hungarian origin born in Czechoslovakia. He is Professor of Virology holding the position of reader in experimental pathology in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. He is also a professorial fellow at Exeter College, Oxford.
