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Historical Bibliography Updated: June 16, 2026

The black box of biology: A history of the molecular revolution. Translated by Matthew Cobb.

Publication Details

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020 CE.

"The Black Box of Biology shows that what led to the incredible transformation of biology was not a simple accumulation of new results, but the molecularization of a large part of biology. In fact, Morange argues, the greatest biological achievements of the past few decades should still be understood within the molecular paradigm. What has happened is not the displacement of molecular biology by other techniques and avenues of research, but rather the fusion of molecular principles and concepts with those of other disciplines, including genetics, physics, structural chemistry, and computational biology. This has produced decisive changes, including the discoveries of regulatory RNAs, the development of massive scientific programs such as human genome sequencing, and the emergence of synthetic biology, systems biology, and epigenetics" (publisher).
Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#12639
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/14880
External URLthe-black-box-of-biology-a-history-of-the-molecular-revolution-translated-by-matthew-cobb

Geographic Context

Publication place: Cambridge, MA