Interface Between Chemistry and Biochemistry

The developing importance of the interface between chemistry and biology is probably the largest change to have occurred in chemistry in the past 15 years. Increasingly more chemists work on problems dealing with biology, and interfacial research is poised to move into the main­ stream of both disciplines. This merging of two types of approach has resulted in a vigorous research discipline with unprecedented potential to address important biological and chemical problems. A series of...
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The developing importance of the interface between chemistry and biology is probably the largest change to have occurred in chemistry in the past 15 years. Increasingly more chemists work on problems dealing with biology, and interfacial research is poised to move into the main­ stream of both disciplines. This merging of two types of approach has resulted in a vigorous research discipline with unprecedented potential to address important biological and chemical problems. A series of exam­ ples is developed in this book. Analytical aspects are discussed in several chapters. Fundamental concepts do not only derive from chemistry, but chemistry has provided biochemistry with powerful tools of analysis. Equally important, phys­ icochemical methods allow studies of nucleic acids and lipids, lipases, receptors and other membrane proteins. Several chapters deal with enzymes in different contexts. The part devoted to metalloproteins is directed toward zinc metallochemistry and NMR structural work on zinc proteins. Chemists have been able to bring to biology their characteristic approach of synthesizing new molecules. These aspects are treated in chapters devoted to glycopeptides and uses of peptides as probes. Further fields of interest in combining different disciplines concern novel active compounds, such as surfactant peptides and catalytic antibodies in studies resulting from close collaboration between chemists and bio­ chemists.