From “Research in Molecular Biology," Winter 1970:

“A new department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry was established at Yale last year to promote the interaction between advanced research in the biological sciences and the development of clinical techniques in medicine. It brought together two disciplines that were previously in separate departments.

“The former Department of Biochemistry at the medical school was one of the oldest in the country, having been founded in 1875 as the Department of Physiological Chemistry. The former Department of Molecular Biophysics was part of the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences and grew out of the Department of Physics shortly after World War II. …

“In the past decade, with the enormous proliferation of knowledge in the biological sciences, department lines have become more and more arbitrary. It has been especially difficult to draw any intellectually meaningful boundaries for molecular biology, which now pervades the entire field. Thus, the joining of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in one department brings together investigators whose studies range from questions of theoretical physics and chemistry to problems of clinical medicine.”