John Cornforth Quotes

The detailed geometry of the coenzyme molecule as a whole is fascinating in its complexity.

My own ideas on the mechanism of catalytic phenomena were very different from those at one time commonly held, ideas which I no doubt owed to the influence of the illustrious teacher who had guided my first steps in chemistry nearly twenty years before - I refer, of course, to Berthelot.

People don't realize that molecules themselves are somewhat hypothetical, and that their interactions are more so, and that the biological reactions are even more so.

As has repeatedly been stated, the underlying hypothesis, which in a number of cases has been supported by direct experimental evidence, is that each gene controls the production, function, and specificity of a particular enzyme.

The more we understand what happens in living cells, the more incredibly powerful you realize things can be when they work from the bottom up, by interaction of one molecule and another.

We managed to prepare a cell-free system which was active when suitably supplemented, and this was a novel result since the process of oxidation was believed to require the integrity of the cells.

As soon as you go into any biological process in any real detail, you discover it's open-ended in terms of what needs to be found out about it.

The manner in which life constructs itself must be dealing with some other principle which we've failed to identify.

The DNA-encoded catalytic machinery of the cell can rapidly learn to promote new chemical reactions when we provide new reagents and the appropriate incentive in the form of artificial selection.

Inside of a living cell there are thousands of proteins that enable it to make more of itself and make your malaria drug, for instance. We don't understand those. We don't understand how they work together.

Man's health and well-being depends upon, among many things, the proper functioning of the myriad proteins that participate in the intricate synergisms of living systems.

I think we all ought to be careful about too much generalization on this issue, even as I confess to painting with a pretty broad brush myself!

Digestion is one of the most delicately balanced of all human and perhaps angelic functions.

The first entirely vital action, so termed because it is not effected outside the influence of life, consists in the creation of the glycogenic material in the living hepatic tissue. The second entirely chemical action, which can be effected outside the influence of life, consists in the transformation of the glycogenic material into sugar by means of a ferment.

We animals are the most complicated things in the known universe.

The physicist's problem is the problem of ultimate origins and ultimate natural laws. The biologist's problem is the problem of complexity.

The blooming of a flower is, in my mind, not a miracle. It's something that we can understand on the basis of molecular biology these days.

Life is a relationship among molecules and not a property of any molecule.

The more complicated the order, the bigger the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a 'decaf grandee, half soy, half lowfat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet,' ooooh, you're a huge asshole.

There are no monotone "values" in biology.

Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing.

Irreducible complexity is a problem for Darwinian evolution. Whenever we see these complex functional systems we realise that they have to be designed.

I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent. But the root question remains unanswered: What has caused complex systems to form?

The skin is forming because of proteins, just like if you cook milk or anything else that's got a coagulant protein in it.

The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism.