History of biochemistry
The term “biochemistry” itself is derived from the combining form "bio-", meaning "life", and "chemistry". The word is first recorded in English in 1848, while in 1877, Felix Hoppe-Seyler used the term ("Biochemie" in German) in the foreword to the first issue of "Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie" (Journal of Physiological Chemistry) as a synonym for physiological chemistry and argued for the setting up of institutes dedicate to its studies. Nevertheless, several sources cite German chemist Carl Neuberg as having coined the term for the new discipline in 1903, and some credit it to Franz Hofmeister.
Alexei Nikolaevich Bach
He was appointed its first director and the institute, where outstanding Soviet biochemists W.A. Engelgardt, A.E. Braunstein, B.I. Zbarsky, D.M. Mikhlin, A.I. Oparin, and others initially worked, played a major role in the development of biochemistry in the USSR. In 1929, Bach was elected full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1935, together with A.I. Oparin, he organized in Moscow the Institute of Biochemistry, USSR Academy of Sciences, of which he was director to the last days of his life; the Institute is now named after Bach. Also in 1935, Bach founded the Soviet scientific journal Biochemistry and was elected President of the D.I. Mendeleev All-Union Chemical Society. In 1939, he was elected Academician-Secretary, Division of Chemical Sciences, USSR Academy of Sciences. In addition to being active in research and scientific organization, Bach was very active in public affairs: he was a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and Deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet.