The goal of this course is to teach you to think about biology in chemical terms, to understand why enzymes and biochemical pathways work the way they do, and understand some of the consequences for physiology. I don't care whether you know the structure of PEP 5 years from now, but I hope that you will remember that aerobic metabolism is a lot more efficient than anaerobic, that "burning glucose" is not just an analogy, and that one main function for the liver is to support the brain's picky eating habits and muscle's need to make ATP rapidly but inefficiently. If you are to remember and understand these ideas, you need to consider biochemistry as a framework of knowledge based on chemical principles, not as a set of unrelated structures and mechanisms. Now that we are nearing the end of the course, I hope these ideas will gel for you and that you will be able to fit details into frameworks for the final. It is the frameworks that take you forward into understanding new systems.
For my part, in the remainder of the course I will try to make it more explicit how the details we are looking at fit into more general principles, and remind you of the principles we have already learned.
Comments are welcome. If you want to send them anonymously, feel free to use a friend's email account but put "BCHM 463" in the subject line.
Please go over
the key and make sure you understand the answers. My rough guidelines to
grade ranges are indicated on the graph. Subjective opinions on score ranges:
< 40: you will need to improve to pass the course.
40-55: Significant gaps in understanding.
55-65: Working but not synthesizing.
66+: Good
