Interface between Chemistry and Biochemistry

The increasing importance of the interface between chemistry and biology is probably the largest change in chemistry in the past 15 years. More and more organic chemists are working on problems dealing with biology. Once considered to be at the very outside edge of either field, interfacial research is poised to move into the mainstream of both disciplines. This merging of two types of approach has resulted in a vigorous research discipline with unprecedented potential to address important biological and chemical problems. A series of examples are developed in this book. Some analytical aspects are discussed first as the fundamental concepts are not only chemical, but chemistry has provided biochemistry with powerful tools of analysis. Physico-chemical aspects are devoted to spectrometric studies of nucleic acids as well as lipids, lipases and membrane proteins (receptors). Three chapters are included in the section dealing with enzymes. The part devoted to metalloproteins is mainly directed toward zinc metallochemistry and NMR structural work on zinc proteins. Chemists have been able to bring to biology their characteristic approach of synthesizing new molecules; three chapters are devoted to peptides, sugar compounds and biocatalysts. Two chapters discuss new active compounds (antibacterial peptides, catalytic antibodies), which are the result of collaboration between chemists and biochemists.