Few mathematicians have ever named a new biological discipline. Since conventional histories of molecular biology see little point in mentioning it, even fewer biologists remember. Weaver was Director of the Natural Sciences Division of the Rockefeller Foundation when, in 1938, he coined the neologism molecular biology to describe the use of techniques from the physical sciences (X-rays, radioisotopes, ultracentrifuges, mathematics, ... ) to study living matter†. His appreciation of the benfits of interdisciplinarity (not such a modern development as one might sometimes think) and the Rockefeller Foundation's consequent patronage of early biomolecular X-ray crystallographers like Max Perutz‡, might be seen to have had some impact on the emergence, from within the Cavendish Laboratory of Physics, of Crick and Watson's seminal paper. While that is conventionally seen as the starting point of modern molecular biology, it might also be seen as the culmination of Weaver's earlier discipline of the same name.
The new molecular biology, after a brief infatuation, quickly disowned the old. It is only in its maturity, under the guise of systems biology, that cordial relations with the physical sciences are being tentatively restored§.
†Warren Weaver, "Molecular biology: origin of the term", Science 170:591-2 1970.
‡Robert Kohler, Partners in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists 1900-1945 University of Chicago Press, 1991.
§Sydney Brenner, "Theoretical biology in the third millennium", Phil Trans Roy Soc London B 354:1963-5 1999. PubMed