CELLULAR BIOCHEMISTRY 



The proposition that most biological problems, if one probes 

 deeply enough, can be reduced to enzyme problems, would 

 seem to justify a certain amount of optimism about the possible 

 attainments of the future. Each scientific era sets up its own 

 criteria of what is regarded as significant. We would regard as 

 deeply significant even the partial solution of such problems as 

 that of nucleic acid and protein synthesis, which are in turn con- 

 nected widi the much larger problem of self-duplication of 

 genetic material and its somatic expression through tlie control 

 of the formation of specific enzymes. 



The example just given indicates the degree to which the 

 boundaries between various disciplines, once sharply delineated, 

 have been blurred. The widening territory in which it is pos- 

 sible to operate with biochemical methods enhances the feeling of 

 the unity of science and facilitates cross-fertilization between 

 diflfercnt disciplines; it also has the effect of counteracting the 

 much decried tendency to overspecialization. Remarkable as 

 the advances are in the elucidation of cellular structure through 

 the use of the electron microscope, biochemists would not have 

 paid much attention if there had not been present an awareness 

 of the importance of structural elements for biochemical events 

 in intact cells. Here one needs refer only to investigations on 

 the role of mitochondria for the energy metabolism of the cell. 

 The study of the biochemical potentialities of these and other 

 cellular particles is important in relation to the activity of the 

 cell as a whole. 



Cellular Organization 



The rapidly increasing information about enzymatic re- 

 actions is accompanied by attempts to apply this knowledge to 

 the intact cell, the ultimate goal being an understanding of the 

 processes which determine the integration of enzymatic ac- 

 tivities at the cellular or even organismic level of organization. 

 Biochemistry is moving but slowly in this direction, because 

 there are many difficulties, but there can be no doubt that such 



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