To someone only vaguely familiar with disciplines such as biochemistry, structural biology, molecular biology, and medicinal chemistry, the introduction of yet another related name may seem unnecessarily confusing. How does chemical biology differentiate itself from these established fields? The simple answer is that it does not.
Each of the aforementioned disciplines arose when a few talented and farsighted chemists pivoted from contemporary problems in chemistry (which, as we are taught in high school, attempts to explain the properties of matter by understanding its structure and reactivity at an atomic level) to emerging challenges in biology. Biochemistry seeks to reconstitute the essence of a biological phenomenon by placing a well-defined set of molecules in a highly controlled environment such as a test tube. Not only does biochemistry play a critical role in elucidating cell…
