What is molecular biology

Generally speaking, molecular biology is the study of structure and function of macromolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins and other polymers. In a narrow sense, molecular biology focuses on nucleic acids and their activities, such as transcription, translation, DNA replication, recombination, translocation and so on.

Writing in Nature in 1961, William Astbury described molecular biology as:

“…not so much a technique as an approach, 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 […] is predominantly three-dimensional and structural—which does not mean, however, that it is merely a refinement of morphology. It must at the same time inquire into genesis and function.”