One-gene-one-enzyme: Remembering biochemical genetics

Abstract

The discovery that proteins are encoded in the genes, which are themselves not proteins, has long seemed to me to be the key to understanding the organization of living matter. To be able to state with confidence that the genetic part of the organism - the part that is transmitted from generation to generation - consists of instructions in the form of DNA for the synthesis of proteins, which later produce and operate the organism, implies a depth of knowledge that would have astonished biologists of an earlier day. In their Enzymes (3rd edition, 1979), Dixon and Webb called this insight "probably the most important discovery ever made in biology." I agree.

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