WHAT IS BIOCHEMISTRY?

Biochemistry is the application of chemistry to the study of biological processes at

the cellular and molecular level. It emerged as a distinct discipline around the beginning
of the 20th century when scientists combined chemistry, physiology, and biology to
investigate the chemistry of living systems.

THE STUDY OF LIFE IN ITS CHEMICAL PROCESSES

Biochemistry is both life science and a chemical science – it explores the chemistry
of living organisms and the molecular basis for the changes occurring in living cells. It
uses the methods of chemistry, physics, molecular biology, and immunology to study the
structure and behavior of the complex molecules found in biological material and the
ways these molecules interact to form cells, tissues, and whole organisms.
Biochemists are interested, for example, in mechanisms of brain function, cellular
multiplication and differentiation, communication within and between cells and organs,
and the chemical bases of inheritance and disease. The biochemist seeks to determine
how specific molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, vitamins, and hormones
function in such processes. Particular emphasis is placed on the regulation of chemical
reactions in living cells.
“Biochemistry has become the foundation for understanding all biological
processes. It has provided explanations for the causes of many diseases in humans,
animals and plants.”

AN ESSENTIAL SCIENCE
Biochemistry has become the foundation for understanding all biological
processes. It has provided explanations for the cause of many diseases in humans,
animals, and plants. It can frequently suggest ways by which such diseases may be
treated or cured.

A PRACTICAL SCIENCE
Because biochemistry seeks to unravel the complex chemical reactions that occur
in a wide variety of life forms, it provides the basis for practical advances in medicine,
veterinary medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology. It underlies and includes such
exciting new fields as molecular genetics and bioengineering.
The knowledge and methods developed by biochemists are applied to in all fields
of medicine, in agriculture and in many chemical and health-related industries.
Biochemistry is also unique in providing teaching and research in both protein
structure/function and genetic engineering, the two basic components of the rapidly
expanding field of biotechnology.

A VARIED SCIENCE
As the broadest of the basic sciences, biochemistry includes many subspecialties such as
neurochemistry, bioorganic chemistry, clinical biochemistry, physical biochemistry,
molecular genetics, biochemical pharmacology, and immunochemistry. Recent advances
in these areas have created links among technology, chemical engineering, and
biochemistry.
 BIOCHEMISTRY – AN OVERVIEW
Beginning with this chapter on carbohydrates, we will focus almost exclusively on
biochemistry, the chemistry of living systems. Like organic chemistry, biochemistry is a
vast subject, and we can discuss only a few of its facets. Our approach to biochemistry
will be similar to our approach to organic chemistry. We will devote individual chapters
to each of the major classes of biochemical compounds, which are carbohydrates, lipids,
proteins, and nucleic acids. Then we will examine major types of chemical reactions in
living organisms. In this first “biochapter,” carbohydrates are considered.
The same functional groups found in organic compounds are also present in
biochemical compounds. Usually, however, there is greater structural complexity
associated with biochemical compounds as a result of polyfunctionality; several different
functional groups are present. Often biochemical compounds interact with each other,
within cells, to form larger structures. But the same chemical principles and chemical
reactions associated with the various organic functional groups that we have studied
apply to these larger biochemical structures as well.
Biochemistry is the study of the chemical substances found in living organisms
and the chemical interactions of these substances with each other. Biochemistry is a field
in which new discoveries are made almost daily about how cells manufacture the
molecules needed for life and how the chemical reactions by which life is maintained
occur. The knowledge explosion that has occurred in the field of biochemistry during the
last decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first is truly
phenomenal.
A biochemical substance is a chemical substance found within a living organism.
Biochemical substances are divided into two groups: bioinorganic substances and
bioorganic substances. Bioinorganic substances include water and inorganic salts.
Bioorganic substances include carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.

BIOINORGANIC Water (about 70 %)

SUBSTANCES
Substances that do Inorganic salts (about 5%)
BIOCHEMICAL not contain carbon
SUBSTANCES Proteins (about 15 %)
BIOORGANIC
SUBSTANCES Lipids (about 8%)

Substances that Carbohydrates (about 2%)

contain carbon
Nucleic acids (about 2%)
As isolated compounds, bioinorganic and bioorganic substances have no life in and of
themselves. Yet when these substances are gathered together in a cell, their chemical
interactions are able to sustain life.
It is estimated that more than half of all organic carbon atoms are found in the
carbohydrate material of plants. Human uses for carbohydrates of the plant kingdom
extend beyond food. Carbohydrates in the form of cotton and linen are used as clothing.
Carbohydrates in the form of wood are used for shelter and heating and in making paper.

Although we tend to think of the human body as made up of organic substances,

bioorganic molecules make up only about one-fourth of body mass, and another 4%-5%
of body mass comes from inorganic salts.