Lecture 1 - Introduction Flashcards
What did John Dalton do for the field of chemistry?
- tends to be regarded as the father of modern chemistry
- made the earliest description of atoms in space
- atoms remain unchanged in chemical reactions
- relative weights of ultimate particles (units are Daltons)
How did Dmitrij Ivanovič Mendělejev contribute?
Composed the first version of Periodic System of Elements
- predicted 3 new elements
- PSE was of course incomplete at that time
- observed a relation between atom masses and chemical properties
What about Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff
- considered founder of physical chemistry
- came up with a theory of the tetrahedral carbon atom i.e. its 3D understanding, including possibility of an asymmetric carbon
(he build it from paper and wanted to send it to the reader for better comprehension)
Linus Pauling?
- came up with structure factors for two helical configurations of polypeptide chains
- alpha-helix and beta-sheets as basic structural motifs
- thought in unconventional way e.g. non-integer numbers
So who actually solved the correct model of a DNA structure?
- James Watson and Francis Crick
- Note: used unpublished data from Maurice Wilkins and Rosalin Franklin
What is the central dogma of molecular biology?
= assumption that genome poses as the storage of DNA that gets replicated, transcribed into RNA (rewriting the whole molecule to create instruction plan for building), and translated (proteins)
Why is it useful to study DNA and Protein structures?
DNA structure
- better understanding on DNA replication, protein translation, mutations and diseases
Protein structure
- folding, misfolding
- DNA interactions
- membrane permeability
- signal transduction
- drug discovery and development
