When was the term biochemistry first used?
History of biochemistry
The history of biochemistry can be said to have started with the ancient Greeks who were interested in the composition and processes of life, although biochemistry as a specific scientific discipline has its beginning around the early 19th century.[1] Some argued that the beginning of biochemistry may have been the discovery of the first enzyme, diastase (today called amylase), in 1833 by Anselme Payen,[2] while others considered Eduard Buchner's first demonstration of a complex biochemical process alcoholic fermentation in cell-free extracts to be the birth of biochemistry.[3][4] Some might also point to the influential work of Justus von Liebig from 1842, Animal chemistry, or, Organic chemistry in its applications to physiology and pathology, which presented a chemical theory of metabolism,[1] or even earlier to the 18th century studies on fermentation and respiration by Antoine Lavoisier.[5][6]
Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford
The Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University began as the physiological chemistry section of the Physiology Department, and acquired its own separate department and building in the 1920s. In 1920, Benjamin Moore was elected to the position of the Whitley Professor of Biochemistry, the newly established Chair of Biochemistry at Oxford University. He was followed by Rudolph Peters in 1923, and an endowment of £75,000 was soon granted by the Rockefeller Foundation for the construction of a new building for the Department of Biochemistry, purchase of its equipment, and its maintenance. The Biochemistry Department building opened in 1927.
In 1954, Hans Krebs was appointed the Whitley Chair of Biochemistry, and his appointment brought greater prominence to the department. He brought with him the Medical Research Council unit established to conduct research on cell metabolism. In 1955, a second professorship in the department, the Iveagh Chair of Microbiology, was established with funding from Guinness and the sub-department of Microbiology created, with Donald Woods its first holder. The eight-storey Hans Krebs Building was constructed in 1964 with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation. Krebs was succeeded by Rodney Porter in 1967. Genetics was brought into the Biochemistry Department when Walter Bodmer was appointed the first Professor of Genetics in 1970. The Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, first established in the Zoology Department with support from Krebs and also linked to the Physical Chemistry Laboratory of the Chemistry Department, became part of the Biochemistry Department. It moved into the Rex Richards building built in 1984, with David Phillips the Professor in Molecular Biophysics. The Oxford Glycobiology Institute, then headed by Raymond Dwek and housed in the Rodney Porter Building, opened in 1991.