The Power of Phosphate: Energy and the "Cellular Economy" in Twentieth-Century Biochemistry

This paper will examine an oft-overlooked development in the history of twentieth-century biology: the rise of bioenergetics, or the study of energy transformations in living organisms. Through a case study of the work of biochemist Fritz Albert Lipmann and his associates, this paper will describe the changing role of the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in bioenergetic research. In the course of his work on phosphate metabolism, Lipmann developed the notion of the “high-energy” or “energy-rich” phosphate bond, which he symbolized by the “squiggle” notation, or ~P. According to Lipmann, ~P’s stored large amounts of energy that could be released when these bonds were broken; for example, in a molecule of ATP, which has three phosphate groups next to each other. Lipmann’s work on ~P suggested that energy from carbohydrate breakdown could be “captured” in the phosphoanhydride bonds of ATP, which biochemists increasingly began to refer to as the universal “energy currency” of the cell. The “currency” of ATP circulated within a metaphorical “cellular economy,” in which energy-requiring metabolic reactions were often linked to energy-releasing metabolic reactions. Building upon recent work on the history of metabolism, this paper aims to articulate a new interpretation of twentieth-century biology by arguing that the bioenergetic metaphor of the “cellular economy” shaped the development of modern biology in ways distinct from the metaphor of “genetic information,” which has received a great deal of historiographical attention.