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ID:
134914
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| Summary/Abstract |
Over the past two decades, “chemical biology” has emerged as the term of choice to describe the interface between chemistry and biology. As its name suggests, the field draws upon chemical insights and tools to understand or engineer living things. This essay focuses on the scientific, societal, and pedagogical potential of an emerging frontier for chemical biologists: namely, the study of Homo sapiens. My goal is to highlight the opportunities and challenges presented to chemistry by human biology at a time when it costs less to sequence an individual's genome than it does to buy a car. But how does chemical biology differ from other similar-sounding fields? By first reaching a clear understanding of the scope of chemical biology, we may address more pertinent questions such as: What is the promise of the emerging interface between chemistry and human biology? Why is it important to nurture the relationship between these fields? And what are the attributes of individuals and environments that are well poised to contribute significantly to this interface?
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| 2 |
ID:
134916
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| Summary/Abstract |
Astronomy starts at the point to which chemistry has brought us: atoms. The basic stuff of which the planets and stars are made is the same as the terrestrial material discussed and analyzed in the first set of essays in this volume. These are the chemical elements, from hydrogen to uranium. Hydrogen, found with oxygen in our plentiful oceanic water, is by far the most abundant element in the universe; iron is the most common of the heavier elements. All the combinations of atoms in the complex chemical com- pounds studied by chemists on Earth are also possible components of the objects that we see in the cosmos. Although almost all of the regions that we astronomers study are so hot that the more complicated compounds would be torn apart by the heat, some surprisingly unstable organic molecules. such as cyanopolyynes. have been detected in cold regions of space with very low density of matter. Nevertheless. the astronomical world is simpler than the chemical world of the laboratory or the real biological world.
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| 3 |
ID:
134915
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| Summary/Abstract |
Chemistry, the “science of matter,” is the investigation of the fabulously complex interchanges of atoms and bonds that happen constantly throughout our universe and within all living things. Computational chemistry is the computer modeling of chemistry using mathematical equations that come from physics. The field was made possible by advances in computer algorithms and computer power and continues to flourish in step with developments in those areas. Computational chemistry can be thought of as both a time-lapse video that slows down processes by a quadrillion-fold and an ultramicroscope that provides a billion-fold magnification. Computational chemists can quantitatively simulate simple chemistry, such as the chemical reactions between molecules in interstellar space. The chemistry inside a living organism is dramatically more complicated and cannot be simulated exactly, but even here computational chemistry enables understanding and leads to discovery of previously unrecognized phenomena. This essay describes how computational chemistry has evolved into a potent force for progress in chemistry in the twenty-first century.
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