The rise of molecular biology since the late 1950s has had the gradual and quite unforeseen effect of turning the eyes of medical scientists increasingly toward the basic mechanisms of life, rather than disease and death. Of course, this has always been the orientation of all nonmedical biologists, studying growth, reproduction, nutrition or any of the other characteristics shared by all living things.
(http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/menshealth/archive/9805101428.html - Ideas & Trends: The Rush to Enhancement; Medicine Isn't Just for the Sick Anymore, by Sherwin B. Nuland, accessed on 28/10/2015).
According to the text, the word “this” refers to:
