Remarkable progress has been made in understanding the folding of proteins

WHEN ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST wrote of the Word becoming Flesh, he was drawing on ideas of reason and order derived from classical Greek philosophy. But he was also providing a succinct description of the most basic truth in molecular biology. In a wonderful and ancient mechanism called the ribosome, words—in the form of messages stored in DNA—are translated into flesh, in the form of proteins.

Proteins are flesh both literally, in that they give meat the texture and bloodiness that carnivores savour, and figuratively, in that their actions lie behind all the strengths and frailties of body and mind. Both their manipulation and their mass production are fundamental to modern pharmacology. The huge market for statins rests on the way they interact with the workings of a protein called HMG-CoA reductase; Keytruda, the world’s biggest-selling cancer drug, is a protein itself, a subtly tweaked antibody which turns off a mechanism that lets cancers evade the immune system. Understanding the form and function of proteins is crucial to medicine, to agriculture and to replacing the petrochemicals currently produced from oil. And that understanding is fast deepening.