Molecular Biology is a field of study that seeks to understand the nature of life at the level of molecules. The discipline is built upon the premise that we can understand complex biological phenomena by taking them apart and reconstructing the process in a test tube from its essential components. This reductionist approach to science has been enormously successful and the rate of growth of new information in this field of study has been explosive. The unity of life . When approached at the level of molecules, all of life appears remarkably similar.
All cells use DNA as their genetic material.
With a few minor exceptions, all use exactly the same system for encoding protein sequences within that DNA, and the same general mechanisms for copying, transcribing, and translating that code. It is very often the case, for instance, that a mechanism discovered in a bacterial cell will turn out to be common in many other cell types, including human cells. James Watson and Francis Crick published the molecular structure of DNA in 1953. Changes and rearrangements of DNA can be introduced almost at will, and their effects determined in cultured cells. The use of these technologies and others like them have led to a field in which our understanding of basic molecular processes is revised and updated on an annual, monthly, or even weekly basis.