the.com/protein synthesis
DNA's recipe gets read aloud, then cooked into every molecule you're made of.
means The cell-level process of building proteins by reading genetic instructions and stringing amino acids together in the right order.
from 'Protein' comes from Greek 'proteios,' meaning 'primary' or 'holding first place,' coined in the 1800s when chemists realized this class of molecules seemed fundamental to life. 'Synthesis' is from Greek 'synthesis' — 'syn' (together) plus 'tithenai' (to place) — literally 'a placing together.' The term as a whole is a 20th-century biological coinage, assembled (fittingly) once scientists worked out that cells build proteins by placing amino acids together according to genetic instructions.
- two stages
- transcription copies the recipe, translation cooks it
- speed
- ribosomes add about 20 amino acids per second
- universal code
- same genetic code runs bacteria and blue whales
- daily output
- your body builds roughly 200 billion new proteins daily