The chemical absurdity of molecular recognition

It’s a truism that life happens through chemistry. Judging from recent Nobel prizes, a molecular explanation of how cells, tissues and organisms work is deemed one of chemistry’s principal challenges. We know the answer is complicated, but there is often said to be a common central principle: the exquisite ability of biomolecules to recognise and bind to one another selectively from the morasses of molecular components moving stochastically around a cell. In this story, the choosy handshakes of molecular recognition create well-defined pathways along which information can be reliably transferred to create what Nobel laureate François Jacob called the logic of life.