To take up a highly original vision developed by JM Lehn, chemistry is marked by both high diversity and low molecular complexity, whereas biology, on the other hand, is characterized by high molecular complexity based on limited diversity (20 amino acids, 4 nucleic bases, etc.). If we are to exploit the growing power of the concepts and tools of these disciplines, which continue to expand after the great scientific revolution of the 20th century, to invent new synthetic processes, which we will call biotechnological (more efficient, more environmentally-friendly, more energy-efficient and less costly), we need to strengthen research at the interface of chemistry and biology. The lecture will attempt to illustrate some of the directions in which this research is heading, using chemistry to study increasingly complex molecular systems, to modify living organisms, and biology to transform cells into cellular factories for the production of unnatural molecules.
This new science, which combines bioinspired chemistry and synthetic biology, is leading to the development of synthetic organisms, biocatalysts and artificial enzymes through the development of new methodologies: metabolic engineering, mutagenesis and directed evolution for original biotechnological applications.