Meets: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 to 10:45 AM in 206 Kirkbride Hall

A weekly problem-solving session(s) overseen by a teaching assistant will be scheduled.

Instructor:     Hal White
    Office:       203 Brown Lab
    Phone:      831-2908
    e-mail:       halwhite@udel.edu

Prerequisites and Restrictions: Organic Chemistry CHEM-322 or CHEM-332 (or equivalent) required. This course is for undergraduate majors in biology, chemistry, and agriculture and for graduate students outside the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who will need a working knowledge of biochemistry. Introductory Biology BISC-207 (or equivalent) strongly recommended. Students planning to do research in biochemistry should take the CHEM-641, 642, and 643 course sequence to obtain an in-depth survey of biochemistry.

Text: Essential Biochemistry 3rd Edition 2013, by Charlotte W. Pratt and Kathleen Cornely. Published by John Wiley & Sons. Modern biochemistry textbooks are often encyclopedic and overwhelming. They are written to accommodate almost any topic that might be included in a biochemistry course. The authors are aware of the dangers information overload and focus on the essential principles.   You should read the text before class to prepare for each class, clarify topics discussed in class, and as a resource for other courses. You may even find it useful to bring the text to class.

Teaching Philosophy: CHEM-527 is an upper-level undergraduate/graduate-level course intended for students who need a substantive, one-semester survey of biochemistry. It does not have an associated laboratory. Biochemistry is an enormous and still rapidly growing field that intersects with virtually all aspects of biology, agriculture, and medicine. There is no way biochemistry can be "covered" in one semester (although some instructors try). In this course, many interesting and important topics will go unmentioned. Ideally you will acquire the knowledge and understand the concepts that will enable you to learn that material on your own later as needed.

Courses in biochemistry share with organic chemistry the reputation for presenting enormous amounts of tedious information that has to be regurgitated on impossible examinations. This course is not about memorization of structures and obscure pathways, (However you will need to know the structures of the common amino acids, simple sugars, common fatty acids, and nucleotides, as well as recognize the structures and know the functions of common coenzymes.) This course is about understanding, thinking, and applying your knowledge in new situations. It is about making biochemistry understandable, hopefully interesting, and possibly exciting enough that you will want to continue learning about it for the rest of your life. These learning goals are aligned with  departmental learning goals.

People learn best and almost effortlessly when they want to know something. Why else is it that many students (and some faculty) can recite for hours the details of soap operas, the personal lives of celebrities, or sports statistics without expecting to be examined on the information? For most students, biochemistry will never have a comparable appeal; however, learning about it will come easier when there is a need to know, a focus for your learning. I hope to challenge your intellect and cultivate your curiosity with homework problems and an informal interactive style of lecturing that encourages your involvement.  

I am interested in the success of all students in the class. Please feel free to seek my assistance.

Examinations and Grading: There will be two hourly examinations, both on Thursdays (September 26 and November 14). Each will be worth 25% of the final grade. The final comprehensive examination (30% of the final grade) will be administered during Finals Week. There will be no make-up examinations for missed hourly examinations regardless of the reason. The grade on the comprehensive final examination will be substituted for any missed examination. In other words, the final examination will constitute 55% of your grade, if you miss an hourly examination. In addition, 20% of the grade will be determined by in-class quizzes and other activities. Unless noted otherwise in class or in an e-mail message to theclass, there will be 10-15 minute quizzes covering the text chapters and lectures for the week at the beginning of class on most Thursdays. When deciding final grades, attendance, attitude, and improvement will be considered in borderline cases. Grades will not be curved in the sense that there will be a certain percentage of A's, B's, and C's etc. Consequently, it is possible for everyone to get an "A," if everyone does very well, (or conversely...). In courses I have taught in the past, the cut off between A's and B's typically has been in the 80 - 85% range.

In keeping with the philosophy that knowing about biochemistry is not the same as understanding biochemistry, examinations will emphasize critical thinking skills such as application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. While there will be questions that specifically test your knowledge, more often you will be asked to use that knowledge in a new situation. In order to provide practice with these skills, I will distribute problems sets most weeks and conduct a weekly problem-solving session (attendance advised, but not required). For the purpose of working on problem sets and general support, I strongly urge you form study groups of 3 or 4 students to meet outside of class to work on problems and come as a group to the problem-solving sessions.

Based on my experience, many students equate memorization of class notes as learning and all that is necessary for success in a course. If that is your mode of operation, you may have difficulties in this course compared to the success you have had in other courses that emphasize recall of facts. Please emphasize conceptual understanding and patterns. And most importantly, don’t wait until the week and days before an examination to cram.

Foundational Concepts in the Molecular Life Sciences: The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has spent the past several years defining what concepts are foundational in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Your instructor has been a member of that working group. The list of expectations may seem daunting at the beginning of the course, but it is my job to help you meet these expectations by the end of the course.