Molecular Biology
Molecular biology signifies the intersection of biochemistry, genetics and cell biology. Even the molecular biology includes microbiology and virology. So molecular biology is frequently used as a catch-all, to describe a wide girth of interests.
History of Molecular Biology
Molecular biology the name was coined by Warren Weaver of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1938. He was an idyllic of physical and chemical explanations of life, rather than a sound discipline. Subsequent the influx of the Mendelian-chromosome theory of heredity in the 1910s and the maturation of atomic theory and quantum mechanics in the 1920s, such explanations seemed within reach. As molecular biology is linked with physics and chemistry Weaver and others encouraged (and funded) research at the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics, while prominent physicists such as Niels Bohr and Erwin Schroedinger turned their awareness to biological speculation. However, in the 1930s and 1940s it was by no means clear which—if any—cross-disciplinary research would bear fruit; work in colloid chemistry, biophysics and radiation biology, crystallography, and other emerging fields all seemed promising. Between the molecules studied by chemists and the tiny structures visible under the optical microscope, such as the cellular nucleus or the chromosomes, there was an obscure zone, “the world of the ignored dimensions,” as it was called by the chemical-physicist Wolfgang Ostwald.
Fundamentals of Molecular Biology
Current molecular biology is concerned chiefly with understanding the mechanisms responsible for transmission and expression of the genetic information that ultimately governs cell structure and function. The fundamental of molecular biology provides a unifying theme to understand the diverse aspects of cell behavior. Molecular biology positioned well by taking advantage of the rapid growth and readily manipulable genetics of simple bacteria such as E. coli and their viruses. The development of recombinant DNA has had a great impact, allowing individual eukaryotic genes to be isolated and characterized in detail. Current advances in recombinant DNA technology have made even the determination of the complete sequence of the human genome a feasible project.
There are many techniques to trap the transmission and expression of the genetic information which includes Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), Expression cloning, Gel electrophoresis, southern blotting, Northern blotting, Eastern blotting, Western blotting, Arrrays, Allele Specific Oligonucleotide, and many more techniques are available.