Physicochemical biology: conquered boundaries and new horizons.

In this paper, we shall consider the main evolutionary stages that occurred within the field of physicochemical biology during the 20th century, following the determination of the tertiary structure of DNA by Watson and Crick and the subsequent successes in the X-ray structural analysis of biopolymers. The authors' ideas on the pre-emptive problems and the methods used in physicochemical biology in the 21st century are also presented, including an investigation of the dynamics of biochemical processes, studies of the functions of unstructured proteins, as well as single-molecule investigations of enzymatic processes and of biopolymer tertiary structure formation.