Foreword

Chemistry is anything but stale or static. Countless numbers of chemical reactions work ceaselessly inside your body, allowing you to think, breathe, and eat. Chapter 1, "Actions and Reactions," aims to convey the essential and wondrous notion that the chemistry inside your body never stops. Cascades of repeating biochemical relays keep your organ systems operating smoothly and efficiently. Your body's metabolic factories break down the food you eat and recycle the components back into basic building blocks from which your tissues and organs are built.

Scientists hunger for information since, like many others, they are curious people. But a key reason biological scientists strive to learn how living systems work is so they can redesign the broken metabolic circuits that contribute to many diseases. Chemists, like most biologists, want to learn how best to employ primitive organisms like bacteria and yeast, not only to probe fundamental biological questions but also to produce the valuable commodities we call medicines. Chapter 2, "Harnessing Biology's Magic," explores how biotechnology offers rich potential toward bettering human health.

Perhaps one of the most amazing triumphs of the human body is the fact that all you really need to do to keep your body running is to eat and to sleep. The rest seems to take care of itself. Of course, much sophisticated biochemistry goes on behind the scenes, as your body efficiently churns out energy from the sugars, fats, and proteins you eat every day. Chapter 3,"Sugars and Fats: Are We What We Eat?" describes how carbohydrates and lipids (the scientific names for sugars and fats) provide much of the structural scaffolding for cells, organs, and tissues. This chapter also highlights a new frontier in chemistry research—how the sugars that adorn the surface of cells affect the way cells move about in the body. This knowledge holds great promise in helping researchers devise ways to prevent diseases such as cancer and conditions such as inflammation that rely on cell movement.

As technology advances at a swift pace, researchers' tools evolve to be ever smaller and more efficient. The first computers ever made were so huge they nearly filled a room. Today, most people's personal computers fit snugly into a desk corner. Some of the computers of tomorrow may fit into the palm of your hand, or even perhaps be too small to see! Chemists are masters of materials, and an increasing number are looking to nature's toolbox to create tiny biological probes and instruments. Scientists can now eavesdrop on the movements of single molecules and create miniature devices such as robots and computers, using traditionally "biological" ingredients like the building blocks of DNA. Chapter 4, "A Chemist's Toolbox," offers a glimpse into the technological wonder propelling the chemistry of today and tomorrow.

And finally, Chapter 5, "The Healing Power of Chemistry," visits some unusual places that may yield future medicines. Medicinal chemists search far and wide for molecules that could be useful drugs to treat diseases. Scientists take careful note of the chemical warfare waged among creatures of the land and sea. For example, molecules produced by microbes for defense against other organisms their own size can point the way toward developing powerful antibiotic drugs to treat infections in people.

Much of the science described in the pages that follow has been funded through U.S. tax dollars invested in biomedical research projects at universities. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which funded most of these research projects, is unique among the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in that its main goal is to promote basic biomedical research that at first may not be linked to any particular body part or disease. In time, however, these scientific studies on the most fundamental of life's processes—what goes on inside and between cells—can shed brilliant light on important health issues, including what causes certain diseases and how to treat them safely and effectively.