Your body is full of biochemical compounds. Without them, plants and animals wouldn’t exist – they’re the compounds that make up living things.
All life on Earth is carbon-based, which means that the large molecules that make up much of our body all contain carbon. In some sci-fi stories, humans find silicon-based life on other planets. That’s because silicon has a lot of similarities with carbon. But as far as we know, all life is carbon-based. So for the moment, that’s how we define biochemical compounds.
A compound is a substance made of molecules that contain two or more elements bonded together. A biochemical compound is any compound that contains carbon and is found in living things. They’re involved in every process of life: growth, digestion, respiration, you name it. In the real world, all biochemical molecules contain hydrogen and oxygen. They might also contain nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus.
The biggest biochemical molecule ever discovered is titin. It’s found in muscles and contains 169,723 carbon atoms, 270,464 hydrogen atoms, 45,688 nitrogen atoms, 522,243 oxygen atoms and 912 sulfur atoms. We call it titin because its real name is too hard to say. It would take a person around half an hour!