Discovery of Phospholipid Bilayer Historical Timeline Biomedical Essay

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November 20, 2020
The Discovery of the Phospholipid Bilayer
Understanding the historical events that led to the discovery of the phospholipid bilayer (bilayer) is essential for every science student. Besides having a more in-depth insight into the physical structure itself, it also sheds light on how the scientific method is used to discover and analyze different scientific concepts. In light of this, I would like to discuss the different events that led to discovering the cell's phospholipid bilayer. This includes both the theoretical and accidental events that led to our knowledge about it today. All in all, I believe that the main reason why such a minuscule object was discovered was because of the cumulative leaps that our predecessors have made over some time.
The History of the Layer's Discovery
Ever since the early days of science, researchers have already theorized that cells are separated from each other by a thin layer that acts as its boundary. However, most of these theories back then did not have a way to determine this layer, and it was only in the 1880s when Charles Overton conducted multiple studies to prove this. Specifically, Overton did utilize various molecules and observed which of them would pass through the boundary. The results of his studies have shown that among the variety of molecules, water is the only one that can move freely between the said layers while nonpolar molecules (although not entirely freely) can move quickly CITATION AlA99 \l 1033 (Al-Awqati). Accordingly, based on his knowledge about the movement of molecules and the polarity of substances, Overton was the first scholar who concluded that the bilayer is primarily composed of 'lipids.'
Although Overton's work successfully determined the bilayer's primary composition, the next question that scientists had was about its 'structure' or 'organization.' To discover this, a scientist named Rayleigh decided to utilize the sc...