molecular biologyn.

1884 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. 127 156 The essay..is a supplement to Darwinism on the speculative side, a contribution by a trained zoologist and comparative anatomist, with a genius for speculation, to what may be called molecular biology.

1938 W. Weaver in Ann. Rep. Rockefeller Foundation 203 And gradually there is coming into being a new branch of science—molecular biology—which is beginning to uncover many secrets concerning the ultimate units of the living cell.

1950 Harvey Lect. 46 3 The name ‘molecular biology’ seems to be passing now into fairly common use... It implies..an approach from the viewpoint of the so-called basic sciences with the leading idea of searching below the large-scale manifestations of classical biology for the corresponding molecular plan. It is concerned particularly with the forms of biological molecules, and with the evolution, exploitation and ramification of those forms in the ascent to higher and higher levels of organization.

1963 Listener 17 Jan. 121/2 The newest and most refined field of genetics, which deals with definite chemical substances and is known as molecular biology.

1964 G. H. Haggis et al. Introd. Molecular Biol. p. x Molecular biology is primarily concerned with the structure of proteins, nucleic acids and other large biological molecules, and with the detailed structure of myofilaments, chromosomes, ribosomes, membranes and other cell components.

1970 Nature 4 July 13/1 The synthesis of genes de novo has been an aim of molecular biology since its very inception.

1974 Daily Tel. 3 Sept. 6 Molecular biology and genetic engineering have reached the stage where results of research could plunge the world into far deeper problems that those raised by the atom bomb.

1989 Molecular & Cellular Probes 3 330 Knowledge of the molecular biology of picornaviruses has rapidly increased.

2000 N.Y. Times Mag. 4 June 55/1 After describing the molecular biology of diabetes, and some particularly grisly techniques she has learned in a laboratory at Brooklyn College, someone in the class asked, ‘You did that?’