Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. Chemical biology is one of several interdisciplinary sciences that tend to differ from older, reductionist fields and whose goals are to achieve a description of scientific holism. Chemical biology has scientific, historical and philosophical roots in medicinal chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, bioorganic chemistry, pharmacology, genetics, biochemistry, and metabolic engineering.