Biochemistry and Benefit to Man

A Zambezia article on the role of the biochemist in society.A biochemist has been defined as someone who ‘talks of Chemistry to Biologists, of Biology to Chemists, and of women to other Biochemists’. However, nowadays there are many of the fair sex among the members of our profession and tonight I shall discard that ever-fascinating subject to talk to you of the development of the relatively young science of Biochemistry and to attempt to outline a few of the many ways in which it has been of benefit to man. In order to do this, I intend to sketch for you the early historical development of the subject and then to describe how a knowledge of Biochemistry has benefited mankind in three fields, namely, in achieving an understanding of inborn errors of metabolism, in research on Cassava, and finally in the development of the ideas and concepts of rational chemotherapy