biomolecule

American  

[bahy-oh-mahl-uh-kyool] / ˌbaɪ oʊˈmɑl əˌkyul /

noun

plural

biomolecules

1. an organic molecule occurring in living organisms, such as an amino acid or protein.

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Other Word Forms

• biomolecular adjective

Explanation

A biomolecule is a chemical building block produced by living organisms. The carbohydrates and proteins found in food are common examples of biomolecules, which are essential for biological processes like growth and energy production. Bios is the Greek word for "life," so the clue is in the name: These molecules are the essential compounds created by living beings to sustain life. While simple elements like carbon are the raw materials, the term biomolecules refers to the complex structures that living things build from them. Hormones, which regulate bodily functions, and DNA, which carries our genetic code, are two types of biomolecules. Biomolecules are also found in food: Vitamins and proteins like gelatin are two examples.

Example Sentences

"Potential biomedical applications are boundless. Examples are in-vitro modelling of biological fluid mechanics, biomolecule synthesis, drug screening, and disease modelling in organ-on-chips."

From Science Daily • May 9, 2024

To encourage such widespread adoption, DeepMind researchers today also released AlphaFold Server, a free online platform that enables users to create AF3 models of proteins interacting with almost any other biomolecule.

From Science Magazine • May 8, 2024

In the study, the researchers showed that oxidative dearomatisation changes the three-dimensional structure of some biomolecule components, which in turn can activate a cascade of subsequent and differentiated reactions, resulting in millions of diverse molecules.

From Science Daily • Apr. 24, 2024

The trees’ wood and bark contains a lot of cellulose, a large biomolecule made up of the elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

From Scientific American • Jun. 16, 2023

Only by knowing the atom-by-atom arrangement of a biomolecule can researchers grasp how it works — how, for instance, the ribosome reads strands of messenger RNA to manufacture proteins, or how molecular pores flip open and shut.

From Nature • Sep. 8, 2015