Translation: In retrospect and prospect

This review is occasioned by the fact that the problem of translation, whic h has simmered on the biological sidelines for the last 40 years, is about to erupt center stage-thanks to the recent spectacular advances in ribosome structure. This most complex, beautiful, and fascinating of cellular mecha nisms, the translation apparatus, is also the most important. Translation n ot only defines gene expression, but it is the sine qua non without which m odern (protein-based) cells would not have come into existence. Yet from th e start, the problem of translation has been misunderstood-a reflection of the molecular perspective that dominated Biology of the last century. In th at the our conception of translation will play a significant role in creati ng the structure that is 21st century Biology, it is critical that our curr ent (and fundamentally flawed) view of translation be understood for what i t is and be reformulated to become an all-embracing perspective about which 21st century Biology can develop. Therefore, the present review is both a retrospective and a plea to biologists to establish a new evolutionary, RNA -World-centered concept of translation. What is needed is an evolutionarily oriented perspective that, first and foremost, focuses on the nature (and origin) of a primitive translation apparatus, the apparatus that transforme d an ancient evolutionary era of nucleic acid life, the RNA World, into the world of modern cells.