Page 242 - The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

3. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The Dirty Job of a Biochemist

Nowadays—especially in cities—there are fewer and fewer opportunities for exploring nature
and really getting your hands dirty. In a world where a mustard-stained tie is the greatest
potential tragedy, most people can’t even imagine trekking out into the wilderness to really
dig through the (often filthy!) wonders of the natural world.

But humans, of course, are products of nature. Long before the miracles of instant spot
remover and nectarine-scented hand sanitizer, we lived like other animals, surrounded by
the great outdoors.

Although biochemistry is a discipline that attempts to view the incredible phenomena of
life through the lens of science, the raw materials of that research are the living organisms
themselves—again, products of nature.

Once, during my graduate student days, I went to the mountains in order to collect
certain plants that contain large amounts of the proteins that I was researching.

I drove with a younger graduate student to some nearby mountains, and we proceeded
along a road that was thickly overgrown with plants. When we got to a place where the car
could no longer pass, we continued on foot to find the plant called Phytolacca Americana
(American pokeweed).

We brought the pokeweed back to the laboratory, washed off the dirt, and used kitchen
knives and scissors to cut them up so that we could extract the target proteins from them.

I would also routinely visit a nearby meatpacking plant to obtain an organ called the
thymus from recently slaughtered cows. (The thymus is usually discarded, so they were
happy to give them away free of charge.) I would use scissors to cut up the organ and store
the little pieces in the laboratory’s refrigerator as experimental samples. This was necessary
to extract the research target protein (DNA polymerase).

In this way, biochemistry originally developed based on a methodology of extracting
(isolating, purifying, etc.) chemical substances from organic raw materials and checking their
chemical properties.

In contrast, molecular biology is a discipline that tries to elucidate the phenomena of
life by using biopolymers such as DNA and proteins.

Simply speaking, if molecular biology just deals with DNA and RNA or prepares an
environment for artificially creating proteins (by using E. coli, for example), it is unnecessary
to use flesh-and-blood, organic raw materials such as a cow’s thymus or plant materials.

In a manner of speaking, the data obtained in these artificial lab environments is
“digital.” Molecular biology is practiced using high-tech equipment and cutting-edge tech-
nologies, and molecular biologists are rarely caked in mud or smeared with animal blood...

As a result, some biochemists refer to their own research as “dirty work.” I think that
when they do this, it’s somehow self-deprecating.

228 Chapter 5