Bio chem peeps

[triumphbr]

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Can you give me a quick synopsis of what it focuses on? (beyond the obvious I mean)

Maybe a general comparison between bio, organic, and basic?

The reason is I always heard horror stories about ochem and when I got there it was like "Whats the big deal, this is totally doable." I actually felt like I had to work harder for basic chem.

 

[labrat024]

No, it is like any other class like organic, physics, calculus, etc where everyone says it is so hard. You gotta remember that we are smarter the many others, so don't listen to them. If you put in the effort to biochem it really isn't bad. Besides the obvious, expect to revisit some acid/base chem at the beginning, enzyme kinetics, amino acid structures and their pKas, protein and enzyme structures (primary -> quaternary) and their binding site structures, carbohydrate, lipid, DNA and RNA structures and what not. Biochem 2 is mostly gen biology on steroids. Learn structures and enzymes in glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, CA cycle, stuctures of hemes, lipid metabolism, nucleic acid metabolism, e- transport, and yada yada.

 

[andrewattheU]

Biochem covers:

Amino acids
acid base
glycolysis
gluconeogenesis
citric acid cycle
et.....

so ya a lot of memorizing processes of the body

 

[omnione]

The way I like to discuss the biochem class itself is that it's your general biology classes souped up to explain every intricate detail like:

How amino acids are formed (genetics)
All the proteins involved in translation (takes translation to another level)
How membranes form (you were told that they simply existed in gen bio)
etc.

The chemistry component is needed to explain the reactions involved in those biological concepts. Given that we are talking about BIOchemistry, there's that need to understand organic chemistry to get the ideas about biochemistry.

As for the other classes in that major, the rest of the classes beyond biochemistry uses the first class as the basis, so biochemistry becomes a subject of its own and not just a combination of biology and chemistry.

 

[veyep]

alot of memorization and bio is study of life and chem is well you know so looking at life in chemistry way.

 

[triumphbr]

Thats cool.

You mean the lipid bilayer doesn't just magically appear like disneyworld? haha. You gotta love it when the teach goes.. "Remember what you learned about X... well forget all that crap because this is actually whats going on."

Thanks to all that helped.

for the record though... I don't feel like I'm any smarter I'm just more stubborn about understanding and think safety glasses make me look the business.

I know what your getting at though. It seems like there are an awful lot of people taking chemistry/organic chemistry that can't stand chemistry, don't put the work in, do terrible and then blame the subject. I figure that stops at biochem though.

 

[andrewattheU]

no I think there are some people that take biochem and blame their poor performance on the class (which is partially true its a hard class), but i would say not as many as in the intro chem and bio classes as most of those people have found something else they would rather study

 

[labrat024]

How amino acids are formed (genetics)
All the proteins involved in translation (takes translation to another level)

Not to argue, but I think I learned about this stuff more in molecular biology, but all schools probably teach differently and some combine biochem and molecular bio. We learned from the book by Lehninger: Principles of Biochemistry (great book by the way, definite keeper!)

 

[omnione]

Not to argue, but I think I learned about this stuff more in molecular biology, but all schools probably teach differently and some combine biochem and molecular bio. We learned used the book by Lehninger: Principles of Biochemistry (great book by the way, definite keeper!)

That's the book I got in undergrad.....😀

...I brought up amino acid biosynthesis/catabolism/metabolism because that's what's going to on the biochem exam on Wednesday.🙁

 

[UES Girl]

Not to argue, but I think I learned about this stuff more in molecular biology, but all schools probably teach differently and some combine biochem and molecular bio. We learned used the book by Lehninger: Principles of Biochemistry (great book by the way, definite keeper!)

Not to argue but after taking biochem, molecular biology was a joke, I think molecular biology is mostly an "easy" version of biochem. 🙂

 

[lvp0021]

Biochem in pharmacy school is not PURE biochem as in undergrad. I came in with a BS in biochem and still find it challenging yet very very interesting. Of course it'll HELP a lot if you took it in undergrad. BUt in pharmacy school, you look at it using the perspective of a pharmacist rather than a researcher. Ex: you know all about competitive inhibition of enzyme (Vmax stays the same but Km changes); now try to use that in explaining why they use ethanol to treat methanol poisoning (this is used very often in hospital pharmacy). Answer: ethanol competitively inhibits Alcohol Dehydrogenase, which metabolizes methanol into harmful xenobiotic. Other examples include mechanism of methotrexate (treatment of cancer--it destroys DHF in pathway of thymine synthesis) or ionophores (antibiotics that mess up membrane lipip structure to kill microbes, ex is valinomycin)... So it's more about applying from what you know.
And of course to build up what you know, you need first to memorize facts and processes and understand how they work. This is a chronic problem with pharmacy school. Because, remember you are not taking this advanced biochem alone! You have other tough classes at the same time. As people say it already, if you have enough time to deal with biochem, you'll understand it. But if you'll find enough time or not, that's the real question. You'll have 15+ hours load (they're all hardcore bio/pharm classes, not just a few science courses blended with a few social classes like in undergrad). So good time management is crucial.
That's the problem most people have in pharmacy school: SO LITTLE time to digest SO MUCH materials. That's why people keep advising pre-pharm students to take biochem and A&P ahead of time as they're the only ones you are able to take as undergrad. So once you see them again in professional curriculum, you'll not spend as much time on them and save those hours to deal with other new tough stuffs like pharmaceutics or medicinal chem (the things you won't be able to take as undergrad).
BUt personally, biochem is a passion of mine and now that I've been through it using a health-care provider perspective, I'd definitely become a biochemist if I hadn't chosen to be a pharmacist 🙄😀
If you need more answers, this is the book I used for my class "Medical Biochemistry John W. Baynes and Marek H. Dominiczak" together with the Lehninger book and the "Biochemistry" by Garrett and Grisham (I love this book so much). To me, biochem is just another beauty of life... enjoy it while you can baby 😍

 

[labrat024]

Not to argue but after taking biochem, molecular biology was a joke, I think molecular biology is mostly an "easy" version of biochem. 🙂

That all depends on the teacher.

 

[labrat024]

Biochem in pharmacy school is not PURE biochem as in undergrad. I came in with a BS in biochem and still find it challenging yet very very interesting. Of course it'll HELP a lot if you took it in undergrad. BUt in pharmacy school, you look at it using the perspective of a pharmacist rather than a researcher. Ex: you know all about competitive inhibition of enzyme (Vmax stays the same but Km changes); now try to use that in explaining why they use ethanol to treat methanol poisoning (this is used very often in hospital pharmacy). Answer: ethanol competitively inhibits Alcohol Dehydrogenase, which metabolizes methanol into harmful xenobiotic. Other examples include mechanism of methotrexate (treatment of cancer--it destroys DHF in pathway of thymine synthesis) or ionophores (antibiotics that mess up membrane lipip structure to kill microbes, ex is valinomycin)... So it's more about applying from what you know.
And of course to build up what you know, you need first to memorize facts and processes and understand how they work. This is a chronic problem with pharmacy school. Because, remember you are not taking this advanced biochem alone! You have other tough classes at the same time. As people say it already, if you have enough time to deal with biochem, you'll understand it. But if you'll find enough time or not, that's the real question. You'll have 15+ hours load (they're all hardcore bio/pharm classes, not just a few science courses blended with a few social classes like in undergrad). So good time management is crucial.
That's the problem most people have in pharmacy school: SO LITTLE time to digest SO MUCH materials. That's why people keep advising pre-pharm students to take biochem and A&P ahead of time as they're the only ones you are able to take as undergrad. So once you see them again in professional curriculum, you'll not spend as much time on them and save those hours to deal with other new tough stuffs like pharmaceutics or medicinal chem (the things you won't be able to take as undergrad).
BUt personally, biochem is a passion of mine and now that I've been through it using a health-care provider perspective, I'd definitely become a biochemist if I hadn't chosen to be a pharmacist 🙄😀
If you need more answers, this is the book I used for my class "Medical Biochemistry John W. Baynes and Marek H. Dominiczak" together with the Lehninger book and the "Biochemistry" by Garrett and Grisham (I love this book so much). To me, biochem is just another beauty of life... enjoy it while you can baby 😍

Awesome, I can't wait. I really liked biochem too. My first year of pharm school is going to have two semesters of biochem. It is pretty cool because we take the class with DO students and PA's. Learning about biochem at a professional level will be very interesting. I am especially looking forward to pharmacology and medicinal chemistry....should be intriguing.