THE BIRTH OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Augustin COURNOT
Contents
The 50th anniversary of the Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology (IBPC, 1977)
The history of science text presented here was commissioned for the fiftieth anniversary of the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique (IBPC) in 1977. My position at the IBPC did not allow me absolute freedom of speech, and I had to deal (fortunately in a very limited way) with certain demands from the heads of the laboratories in the way I presented their work, which is evident in the text. Moreover, at the time I did not yet have an epistemological position as assertive as the one I have today - I would no longer speak of reductionism, but rather of the analytical method, as I mention in this text, nor, of course, the knowledge I have continued to accumulate since then, and this text is therefore not free of a certain naivety. However, it does have the merit of bringing to light elements of the history of science at the birth of molecular biology that are little known or poorly known.
The IBPC has played a leading role, through the work of Boris Ephrussi in particular, in the molecular definition of the gene. It has also played an eminent role in the construction of the interdisciplinarity that is the central characteristic of molecular genetics. It served as a model for the construction of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). In 1977, the CNRS was still in its golden age for ten years or so, before declining - only to understand the genomics revolution with great delay - to reach the situation of today, where the spirit of Jean Perrin, based on the quality of interactions and the enthusiasm of the players, has completely disappeared. The interdisciplinary seminars where physics, biology, philosophy, chemistry, poetry and mathematics were brought together have also disappeared. The very basis of the knowledge needed by the actors who participated in them probably no longer exists. Between 1968 and 1975, in fact, general education was destroyed in France, leaving very young people with no chance, barring a happy accident, of knowing what their fathers knew. We too have experienced a Cultural Revolution, but it did not last only ten years: it is not over. The IBPC itself has not stood the test of time, and it would be difficult today to recapture the spirit of its founder Edmond de Rothschild. It is true that a central property of life is to create young offspring, not to keep individuals alive forever. The success of an institution, in this context, is measured in what it has been able to create as new institutions, not in the desperate maintenance of the memory of its glorious past. Sterility in this area is common.
It seemed useful to me, in these conditions, to make public this text, written in French, a bottle in the sea, without a date, a bit like all the texts on this site.
PHYSIQUE, CHIMIE, BIOLOGIE
Un demi-siècle d’interactions
1927-1977
par
ANTOINE DANCHIN
Maître de Recherche au C.N.R.S.
I - Fondements scientifiques de la Biologie Moléculaire :
1. De la physiologie à la chimie biologique : le métabolisme et sa régulation
2. De la génétique formelle à la génétique moléculaire : un gène une protéine
3. La biophysique à l'Institut de Biologie : Photosynthèse, Oxydoréduction, Macromolécules, Électrophysiologie
II - Les nouvelles techniques
I - Les macromolécules porteuses de l'information héréditaire
II - Étude des protéine (enzymes, anticorps)
III - Le métabolisme intermédiaire et l'énergie
IV - Biochimie quantique
V - La biologie moléculaire du gène
VI - Progrès techniques :
1. Rôle de la chimie : synthèses et analyses
2. Techniques physiques :
a) Forme générale des macromolécules
b) Spectroscopie
I - Mécanisme de la catalyse et fonction des macromolécules :
1. Les cofacteurs des réactions enzymatiques
2. Développement des recherches quantiques
3. Les réactions productrices et acceptrices d'électrons :
a) La photosynthèse
b) Bioluminescence et radicaux libres
4. Enzymologie et problèmes de conformations macromoléculaires
II – Régulations, expression génétique ett systèmes intégrés :
1. La synthèse des protéines
2. Régulation de l'expression génétique
3. Étude théorique d'un système intégré : modèle de l'apprentissage.
