Synthetic Tools for Molecular Biology

Abstract

Chemistry has made tremendous advances over the past four decades in the broad fields of synthesis and understanding chemical reactivity. In that same time span, a series of revolutionary events occurred in biology. First came the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA in the 1950s by Watson and Crick. This discovery allowed the elucidation of the mechanisms of DNA replication -- how DNA makes copies of itself -- and DNA transcription and translation -- the processes that allow the genetic code to be read and translated into proteins. In the 1970s, the techniques that permit DNA to be cut and spliced in controlled and well-defined ways were invented and the technology of recombinant DNA was born.

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