The Two Approaches to Organic Chemistry

The Two Approaches to Organic ChemistryA conversation with a colleague at work led to the topic of synthetic biology and organic chemistry. At first, I felt slightly intimidated by the subject matter and worried that my response would be to protest my intellectual abilities and my lack of knowledge about the subject. After all, a quick online search would reveal a vast amount of information about synthetic biology and a little more than an ounce of information about organic chemistry.I started to read the information I found online and discovered that, in fact, I was much more knowledgeable about synthetic biology and organic chemistry than I thought. It turns out that the two areas are not as different as one might believe. The principles of molecular biology and cell biology are almost identical to organic chemistry. Synthetic biologists will learn about basic techniques and tools that will help them understand the molecular structure of many organisms, and they will also learn how to manipulate their host's environment to develop more complex and useful strains.Unlike pure biologists, synthetic biologists will have the opportunity to observe organisms live and to control their environment. While this sounds amazing, there is also some fear that the new strain of synthetic biologists may, over time, cause evolution to slow down or stop altogether.But even the simplest laboratory experiments can produce startling results. These will reveal the mechanical and biological principles of organismal biology. When combined with simple laboratory experiments, these findings will be able to help scientists discover the processes and biological systems that underlie and govern all living organisms.In organic chemistry, researchers understand that the existence of organisms is determined by forces that act outside of any known natural selection. For example, the process of photosynthesis produces oxygen as a byproduct. Another example is the process by which the genetic material in a cell is transferred from one cell to another, so that the cells have different combinations of genetic material, which are needed to create the cell itself.Because of the interdependence of biology and chemistry, synthetic biologists will be able to identify the principles that underlie the entire process of cell division. They will also be able to apply this understanding to the study of genes, chromosomes, and the structure of chromosomes.A distant cousin of organic chemistry is physical science. The differences between the two can be summed up in the difference between mathematical and physical chemistry. Organic chemistry uses chemistry principles to describe the properties of the materials it studies; physical chemistry examines the physical properties of these materials to determine the chemical reactions that occur during their formation.In both fields, however, at a very fundamental level, they study the same factors at a very fundamental level. In fact, there is not much that organic chemistry does that has not been studied at a physical level by physical chemists. In conclusion, both organic chemistry and synthetic biology are wonderful and interesting subjects, and are equally rewarding to the trained chemist.