The “Central Dogma of Molecular Biology” put forth by Nobel laureate Francis Crick in 1953 is: “information flows from nucleic acid into amino acid, and never the reverse”. In the diagram above, 20 amino acids (the cubed sector) are translated from 4 RNA codons (three axis). Cicely Williams in 1935 coined the term “kwashiorkor” for amino acid starvation due to protein deficiency. Kwashiorkor is contrasted with “marasmus” energy starvation. The “cubed sector” of diagram has 10 dietary essential amino acids: F H I K L M R T V W. The symbols are: phenylalanine, histidine, isoleucine, lysine, leucine, methionine, arginine, threonine, valine and tryptophan. Kwashiorkor is a deficiency of information flow from ribonucleic acid (U C A G).
