In 1938, as Director of the Natural Sciences Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, Warren Weaver coined the term molecular biology to describe the use of techniques from the physical sciences to study living matter.

In that same year, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded research grants to Linus Pauling for research on the structure of hemoglobin. Under Weaver’s direction the Rockefeller Foundation became a primary funder of early research in molecular biology.