Year: 2022

68 MOLECULES KEY TO LIFE and "contribute to the synthesis and primary structures of the 4 fundamental macromolecular components of all cells: nucleic acids, proteins, glycans and lipids. DNA and RNA are produced from the 8 nucleosides. Although deoxyribose and ribose are saccharides, they are an integral part of the building blocks of DNA and RNA. There are 20 natural amino acids used in the synthesis of proteins." Glycans derive from 32 saccharides. Lipids are represented by 8 categories." " http://lnkd.in/dcAKDVr View in LinkedIn

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID (Bill Clinton). "For years chemists have been making molecules to solve problems—each one more synthetically complicated than the last—but we still haven't come close to achieving what nature can do with much simpler chemistry. Nature's most complex component of life, the protein, is made from only 21 simple amino acids... it's not the molecule you have that's important, it is how it interacts with its environment."" " http://m.phys.org/news/2013-08-nature-chemistry-molecular-properties.html View in LinkedIn

ELEGANT SIMPLICITY of nature's building blocks. Four amino acids code DNA's ticker-tape of life, and the creation of millions of species of diverse living things. The other main building blocks are both simple in basic structure but infinitely variable in the details: simplicity with flexibility. View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR DESIGN featuring benzene rings. A traditional synthetic chemist's view of nature's facility in chemical synthesis (with a dab of envy), to try and derive methods to replicate synthetic pathways using traditional chemistry. We are saved from this agonizing problem by using microorganisms to figure out the tough synthetic problems. This interesting analysis shows exactly what a huge leap forward SynBio represents for molecular synthesis. Nature does it best. " " http://lnkd.in/dYQwhWD View in LinkedIn

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY revolutionized chemistry. "The mid-nineteenth century saw the development of a radical new direction in chemistry: instead of simply analyzing existing molecules, chemists began to synthesize them—including molecules that did not exist in nature. The combination of this new synthetic approach with more traditional analytical approaches revolutionized chemistry,"" " http://lnkd.in/dqHXeRT View in LinkedIn

EARTH-SHATTERING SYNTHESIS OF UREA by Friedrich Wöhler in 1828: "the synthesis of this small organic molecule was earth-shattering news. Chemists believed there was a clear distinction between molecules from living beings (referred to as 'organic') and those from nonliving origin ('inorganic'), and a 'vital force' present only in living organisms was required to convert the inorganic into organic. This was a key nail in the coffin of vitalism."" " http://lnkd.in/dqHXeRT View in LinkedIn

FROM SYNCHEM TO SYNBIO. The chemical synthesis of DNA oligonucleotides, RNA and cDNA were linear extensions of the early synthesis of urea and explosion of synthetic (modern organic) chemistry in the 19th century. Just as the synthesis of natural molecules considered off limits for chemists was revolutionary, so today, Synthetic Biology is a paradigm shift, where the synthesis of new life forms was equally condidered impossible. " " http://lnkd.in/dqHXeRT View in LinkedIn

BIOLOGY AS ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS, a radical new viewpoint. "The boldness of the stated goals—to learn how to precisely and reliably engineer and build self-organizing systems that both recapitulate biological function and show new functions—is unquestionably novel. Many reviews have compared synthetic biology to electrical engineering, noting that cellular networks, like electronic circuits, are built in a hierarchical fashion from modular components that perform logical computations." " " http://lnkd.in/dqHXeRT View in LinkedIn

UNANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES. " ""Although dyes were the earliest economically important synthetic compounds, the development of the European dye industry would ultimately lead to successes in chemotherapy. Indeed, nearly all of the modern big pharmaceutical companies are in part descended from German or Swiss dye manufacturers."" " http://lnkd.in/dqHXeRT View in LinkedIn

TITANIC LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS. "Measurements of a big sea on Titan, a moon of Saturn, show that it contains about 9,000 cubic km of mostly liquid methane. This huge volume is equivalent, say scientists, to about 40 times the proven reserves of oil and gas on Earth."" " http://lnkd.in/d9AmjyJ View in LinkedIn