Offered in the Spring semester, Tues./Thurs. 8:00am-9:15pm

INSTRUCTOR: Mary Ann McLane, PhD, CLS(NCA)

COURSE GOALS:  This course is designed to apply physiological biochemistry and chemical/instrumental principles to the performance, evaluation and clinical significance of selected clinical chemistry analytes: carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, electrolytes, non-protein nitrogen and blood gases. Electrophoresis and acid-base balance will also be covered.

OBJECTIVES: Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Determine the appropriateness of a patient sample for clinical chemistry analysis.
• Discuss carbohydrate structure, biochemistry and metabolism, and compare current means of determining glucose.
• Discuss inborn errors of carbohydrate metabolism, their pathologies, and laboratory methods of detection.
• Discuss protein structure, biochemistry, metabolism and correlate these with general protein function.
• Compare common classification, quantitation and separatory techniques for proteins.
• Discuss lipid structure, biochemistry, metabolism, function and current analytical methodologies.
• Correlate various levels of lipid concentration with the clinical and laboratory findings in the hyperlipidemias.
• Discuss methods of evaluating renal function, and provide characteristic patterns and significance of pathologic states.
• Correlate the significance of trace element analysis in healthy and pathologic conditions.
• Evaluate a patient's overall acid-base balance when given data on pH, pCO2, pO2 and electrolytes.

The final grade for the course is derived from the following numerical scale:
 > 94% ......... A               77-79%......... C+
 90-93%......... A-             74-76%......... C
 87-89%......... B+            70-73%......... C-
 84-86%......... B              65-69%......... D
 80-83%......... B-            < 64% ........... F

This course is a major one in the curriculum and must be passed with a grade of C- or better.

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