All but three of the codons correspond to particular amino acids, and the order of the codons in the nucleic acid corresponds to the order of the amino acids in the protein.

Another nucleic acid, RNA, carries the information to a molecular machine called a ribosome, which reads the RNA and strings together amino acids to form the protein.

Topics include macromolecular machines for energy and force transduction, regulation of biosynthetic and degradative pathways, and the structure and function of nucleic acids.