Summary: Enzymes are biological catalysts whose main purpose is to speed up the rate of a chemical reaction by decreasing the activation energy that is needed. Find out why enzymes are important for the majority of chemical reactions with help from a science teacher and field biologist in this free video on biology.
Brian Erickson has a bachelor's degree in biology from Lewis & Clark College, and graduated with honors. During his college career, Erickson earned several awards and scholarships,...read more
"Hi, I'm Brian with ericksontutoring.blogspot.com. Today we're going to discuss the importance of enzymes. Enzymes are biological catalysts and their main purpose is to speed up the rate of chemical reactions by decreasing the activation energy needed. So that was a lot of jargon that I want to clarify. First of all enzymes basically they help make a reaction happen but they themselves do not actually react or chemically change in the process. So they're able to repeat over and over again. And what they essentially do is they take the substrate and they change shape, putting it in a more favorable position for an activation to occur. Reactions are usually limited by how much energy is needed to make them happen. So enzymes lower that energy making reactions happen and the chemical reactions in our bodies take place. They're extremely important for the majority if not all of chemical reaction in bodies and organisms and without them it's definitely arguable that life as we know it wouldn't exist. This has been a discussion of how enzymes are important."