Today, scientists find useful applications for compounds from nature but their search methods have changed. Biochemists analyze plants, microorganisms, but many of the things they work with are small even to be seen with a microscope, so they use chemicals to perform experiments. Many of these new inventions are enzymes, biological molecules that are like catalysts for chemical reactions.
Sometimes, the only way to get useful organic compound is to get the organism that contains it. But improvements in science, useful compounds can now often be reproduced in a laboratory and sometimes they can be made by genetic engineering. For examples, insulin is a hormone important to human digestion. Many people with diabetes must take insulin as a medicine.
Scholarly peer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field, before a paper describing this work is published in a journal. The work may be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given (narrowly defined) field, who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review.
Last date updated on September, 2024