A combination of genetics and biochemistry, it has become a dominant branch of biology that studies the structure and function of biological macromolecules (e.g., nucleic acids such as DNA, proteins), and the relationships of their functioning to the structure of a cell. In particular, it focuses on the processes of DNA replication, and transcription and translation involved in protein synthesis (i.e., the synthesis of proteins from amino acids). The term ‘molecular biology’‚ was apparently first used by Warren Weaver (1894-1978) in 1938, who together with Claude E. Shannon (1916-2001), laid the mathematical foundations for information theory.
See Amino acids, Behavior genetics, Bioinformatics, Biology, Central dogma of molecular biology, Developmental genetics, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), Human Genome Project, Ligands, Protein folding problem, Proteins, Recombinant DNA (rDNA)