CHEM-642 Biochemistry Syllabus  -  Spring 2002

Course Catalog Description:  Intermediary metabolism of lipids, amino acids, purines and pyrimidines; nucleic acid chemistry; protein and nucleic acid synthesis; molecular basis of genetic regulation; and selected topics. Prerequisite CHEM-641.
 

	Through March 21	From March 26 on
Instructors:	Hal White	Junghuei Chen
Office: Phone: e-mail:	123 Brown Laboratory 831-2908 halwhite@udel.edu	105A Drake Laboratory 831-1035 junghuei@udel.edu

Meeting Time and Place: Section 10 meets 3:30 to 4:45 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays in 004 Drake Hall. Section 11 meets 9:30 to 10:45 AM Tuesdays and Thursdays in 205 Brown Laboratory. Because morning and afternoon lectures will be presented by the same professor and because there will be common hourly and final examinations for both sections, students may attend either or both lectures. However, because 004 Drake Hall has limited seating (~25), students registered for a particular section have seating priority.  See Semester Schedule.

Office Hours: Dr. White will see students on the spur of the moment, if he is free. Otherwise, students should sign-up in an open time on the daily schedule next to his office door or arrange a meeting by phone or e-mail. Dr. Chen's office hours are 9:00 to 11:00 Friday mornings.

Text: Garrett and Grisham, Biochemistry, Saunders College Publishing. Consider this text as a resource to be read in conjunction with the lectures. While the lectures will follow the sequence of chapters, specific reading assignments will not be made. It is the student's responsibility to locate and read relevant parts of the text to enhance learning. Students who use the text to prepare for lecture and subsequently to interpret difficult parts of the lectures, benefit significantly.

Examinations and Grading: There will be two hourly examinations (25% each) to be held on Saturday mornings (March 9 and May 4) so that both sections can take common exams at the same time. Make sure to keep those dates available. The final examination (40%) will be comprehensive. There will be no make-up examinations. The normalized grade on the final examination will be substituted for a missed hourly; thus, the final examination will constitute 60% of the grade for a student who misses one hourly examination. The remaining 10% of the grade will be based on homework in the first half of the course. Metabolic pathway sheets will be available on examinations. [See First hourlies for Spring 2000, 2001, & 2002 and Dr. White's part of the Spring 2000 & Spring 2001 Final Examinations.]

We assume that students who take CHEM-642 have learned the following in CHEM-641:

• know the structures and names of the fundamental building blocks of macromolecules,
• have an appreciation of protein structure and function,
• have a basic understanding of enzyme kinetics and mechanism,
• recognize the structures and know the chemical function of coenzymes, and
• understand the catabolism of glucose and fatty acids to carbon dioxide and water with the formation of ATP.

CHEM-642 is a graduate-level course. We know that the students enrolled have the background and ability to do well and we presume that all are interested in learning. If everyone does high-quality work, everyone will get an "A" in this course. In that sense, the grades are not curved. However, based on past experience, there is a spectrum of performance and we have to decide what constitutes the excellence worthy of an "A." Based on past results, the average grade in this course is in the B to B+ range.

Problem Sets:                 Tell me, and I will forget.
                                        Show me, and I may remember.
                                        Involve me, and I will understand."

This perceptive Chinese proverb, recognizes the limited effect of lectures. Involvement is the key to learning. The process is as important as "the answer." While reading and studying help learning, solving problems focuses learning on knowledge gaps and requires one to review and integrate knowledge. We wish to promote this conceptual understanding through involvement. Thus, we will assign homework problems which will be graded in the first half of the course. These challenging problems, posted on the course web-site, are intended to stimulate understanding by thinking about and analyzing material from the research literature. They may require 5 to 10 hours or more per week to complete (and double that to grade). Problem sets will not be accepted after the day they are due.

While only individuals learn, interactions with others can enhance the learning process. Thus, students may work together on solving these problems. However, "working together" here does not imply a divide-and-conquer approach in which students pool their individual work, but do not discuss it. Plagiarism or paraphrasing the work of others does not demonstrate understanding. Write-up your own answers in words that show that you understand. Also, if you work in a group, indicate who you worked with on your assignments. If you are uncertain about what constitutes plagiarism or how the university deals with cases of intellectual dishonesty such as plagiarism, check out the student handbook web-site devoted to these issues.

Course Philosophy: Biochemistry is a huge field and still growing. Each year the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) publishes over 35,000 pages of research articles. Biochemistry, Cell, Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and a host of other journals multiply that number many fold! Even in a two-semester course, there is no way to cover many important topics that ideally should be covered. Our goal is to uncover core principles that students can use and build on. Part of each examination will reflect that philosophy by including new material that must be analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated in the context of the course.

While memorized facts (e. g. amino acid names, structures, and one-letter representations) are important to understanding biochemistry in the same way that vocabulary is important to speaking a language, it is the way facts (and words) are put together in conceptual frameworks that lead to understanding. We will try to provide this structure and meaning by connecting biochemical information to other disciplines such as nutrition, molecular biology, organic chemistry, medicine, evolution, etc. However, there is only so much we can do. To understand biochemistry, one must be able to speak "the language" without a "dictionary." One can gain or test that ability by working together on homework problems, by attending research seminars, or by doing research.

Extracurricular Activities: Throughout the semester there will be lectures and discussion groups on biochemical topics. The Biochemistry Seminar meets Mondays at 4 PM in 214 Brown Laboratory. This weekly series features distinguished biochemists talking about their current research. In addition, seminars in the Physical/Analytical Chemistry Seminar Series on Mondays, the Organic/Inorganic Seminar Series on Wednesdays, and the Biological Sciences Seminar Series on Wednesdays often deal with topics of biochemical interest. There also is a Science Education Seminar Series this semester. At noon on Fridays, there is a Biochemistry Journal Club in 212 Brown Laboratory where faculty and graduate students present material from the recent biochemical literature. Students are welcome at all of these. Although course credit is not obtained by attending these presentations, they provide an opportunity to expand and consolidate your biochemical knowledge. You are especially encouraged to attend if you are doing or plan to do research in a biochemically-related field. A list of speakers and their topics is posted on the Department's web-site.