History of biochemistry
The history of biochemistry can be said to have started with the ancient Greeks who were interested in the composition and processes of life, although biochemistry as a specific scientific discipline has its beginning around the early 19th century. Some argued that the beginning of biochemistry may have been the discovery of the first enzyme, diastase (today called amylase), in 1833 by Anselme Payen, while others considered Eduard Buchner's first demonstration of a complex biochemical process alcoholic fermentation in cell-free extracts to be the birth of biochemistry. Some might also point to the influential work of Justus von Liebig from 1842, "Animal chemistry, or, Organic chemistry in its applications to physiology and pathology", which presented a chemical theory of metabolism, or even earlier to the 18th century studies on fermentation and respiration by Antoine Lavoisier.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester
Known by a number of names during its lifespan, the department was formed as the Department of Biochemistry, under Professor Alan Eddy, in 1959. It was created from the previously-existing Brewing Chemistry department. In the early 1980s the then novel discipline of molecular biology was introduced with the appointment of Paul Broda to a chair in this field, the department subsequently being known as Biochemistry and Applied Molecular Biology (BAMBi). The department was particularly strong in the molecular biology of yeast, under the direction of Stephen Oliver. In 1992 the Oliver group co-ordinated the production of the first complete DNA sequence of an entire chromosome, chromosome III of the yeast "S. cerevisiae".