It might have been expected that the traditional separation between chemistry and biology would have been bridged by the emergence and growth of biochemistry in this century. In biochemistry, one could fulfill the wish to understand the chemical basis of cellular function in fermentation and photosynthesis, in muscle contraction and digestion, and in vision and hereditary. Despite its enormous success in solving these and other problems, biochemistry has failed to fill the gulf between chemistry and biology. Instead, biochemistry itself is being pulled apart by separate drifts of the two cultures from which it was assembled.
By 1950, organic chemistry had been enriched by more than a century of impressive achievements. Organic chemists had prepared and characterized the sugar and amino acid substrates and products of enzyme reactions. They belonged to a proud and venerable science. Insights into the structure and reactivity of carbon compounds had made possible the synthesis ...
