Molecular biology, a widely used expression for a changeable meaning

Gabriel Gachelin (1)

1 REHSEIS (UMR_7596) - Recherches Epistémologiques et Historiques sur les Sciences Exactes et les Institutions Scientifiques

On my side, I believe that I first encountered the expression “molecular biology” at the very beginning of my thesis work, in October 1964, when seeing an issue of the Journal of Molecular Biology, a journal then considered in the laboratory the smartest of the best journals in modern biology. However, even in Monod's and Jacob's laboratories, the words “molecular biology” were not in routine use among us, whereas bacterial genetics, gene expression, negative and positive regulation, models, biophysics, operon, replication and replicon, etc were much more frequently used to speak of what was going on. In my opinion, the stepwise generalization of the use of “molecular” and “molecular biology” reflects distinct periods of doing science through molecular approaches, but does not attribute a unified meaning to the expression “molecular biology”.

Mots clés: allosteric transitions; Aplysia; bacterial genetics; biochemical mechanisms; biological adaptation; E. Boyse; P. Buser; diauxy; DNA; entomologists; Escherichia coli; eukaryotes; gene expression; genetic code; François Gros; François Jacob; lactose operon; André Lwoff; lysogeny; macromolecules; microbiology; molecular biology; molecules; Jacques Monod; nematodes; L. Old; prophage expression; protein synthesis; protozoologists; teratocarcinoma system; virology; X-ray

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Gabriel Gachelin. Molecular biology, a widely used expression for a changeable meaning. 2006. ⟨halshs-00335559⟩