Expected level of mathematical competency???

[flaktroop3r]

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Hello.

Is there any sort of general consensus as to the level of mathematical sophistication that MD/PhD students (especially in biochemistry) are expected to be familiar with? While I am aware that most schools recommend (or require) two semester of calc, I feel that such limited knowledge will hamper me for some reason. What do you think???

Thanks.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

Hello.

Is there any sort of general consensus as to the level of mathematical sophistication that MD/PhD students (especially in biochemistry) are expected to be familiar with? While I am aware that most schools recommend (or require) two semester of calc, I feel that such limited knowledge will hamper me for some reason. What do you think???

Thanks.

For Biochemistry, you would need a fundamental understanding of P-Chem, therefore you need at least a basic understanding of Partial Differential Equations.

That equates to two semesters of calc out of a three semester long series.

I don't know about you, but I decided to only do the first semester of calc, teach myself the rest that was pertinent as I fought my way through P-Chem. 👍

It's called guerilla math. Know what you need to know to be useful in science. Beyond that, the rest is usually fluff. 👍

 

[PhysicsDoc]

For Biochemistry, you would need a fundamental understanding of P-Chem, therefore you need at least a basic understanding of Partial Differential Equations.

That equates to two semesters of calc out of a three semester long series.

Dealing with PDE's requires, at a MINIMUM, a thorough understanding of linear algebra and differential equations as well as a halfway decent PDE course (though in reality it usually requires several). All of these courses go far beyond the curriculum of the Calc I/Calc II classes. However, the only PDE you'd ever need to deal with in a biophysical chem class is Schrodinger's eq, which was 'solved' back in the late 1700's/early 1800's by a series of French mathematicians -- hence, the need to understand PDE's as a biochem major is next to nil. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, since most undergraduate *physics* majors aren't even expected to be able to solve PDE's except in a very narrow range of circumstances (usually when they are nice and sepearable).

To do biochemical research, all you really need is calcI/calcII... the degree of quantitative sophistication pretty much reaches its peak with the calculation of concentrations, absorbances, etc. The one class I might suggest in addition to the calc sequence is something like probability/stats, since if you want to do any sort of data analysis you're going to need the sorts of skills dealt with in those courses.

 

[flaktroop3r]

Concentrations and absorbances? You mean with Beer's law? That's like, pre-high school level math. Ok then I guess I have little to worry about.... Thanks.


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I thought that Schr?dinger wasn't born until 1887.............. 😕

 

[PhysicsDoc]

The only place I've ever seen (difficult) math being used in my university's biochem department is the x-ray crystallography lab, and the guy who runs that is a physicist. I think you're pretty safe going for a calcI/calcII/stats combo if you want to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry.

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Schrodinger's wave mechanics didn't surface until the 1930's, post Bohr/de Broglie/Heisenberg/etc. Nevertheless, the Schrodinger equation (for the hydrogen atom) ended up taking a form whose pieces had already been solved by the French mathematicians Legendre (1752-1833), Laguerre (1834-1886), etc (thank wikipedia for the dates); the solutions to the equation when using a harmonic oscillator potential were described by Hermite (1822-1901).

 

[MacGyver]

The only area where you REALLY NEED high level math like PDEs and beyond is imaging. MRI and other imaging modalities require HEAVY preparation in math.

 

[PhysicsDoc]

The only area where you REALLY NEED high level math like PDEs and beyond is imaging. MRI and other imaging modalities require HEAVY preparation in math.

If you're interested in the engineering side of imaging (which I would assume was the case if you wanted to pursue an MD/PhD program in it), sure. I'd bet that most radiologists don't have a clue how to quantitatively describe the likes of magnetic resonance imaging, though.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

Anyways, PDE's or not, I used the book:

Survival Guide for Physical Chemistry by M. Francl

for P-Chem, wherein it contained an entire chapter on "Guerrilla Math" for P-Chem.

Like I said, it walks you step by step through the fundamental concepts, how to understand the equations, manipulate them (albeit in a rudimentary and fundamental way), and essentially utilize it to solve all sorts of complex Fourier Transform problems, etc. that a Spectroscopist would probably use in every biochemical assays, etc.

 

[tofurious]

All kinetics involving biochemical equations require calculus. Drug absorption, drug metabolism, and drug/metabolite clearance require calculus. Insulin clearance requires calculus. Channel conductance requires calculus. FRET requires calculus. Radiation oncology requires calculus.

The only people who don't think medicine need calculus are people who have not done enough of medicine or who don't know how the easy-to-use websites containing input boxes and output boxes magically give you answers.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

It's all about Excel, and the approximation method! 👍 😀

 

[PhysicsDoc]

All kinetics involving biochemical equations require calculus. Drug absorption, drug metabolism, and drug/metabolite clearance require calculus. Insulin clearance requires calculus. Channel conductance requires calculus. FRET requires calculus. Radiation oncology requires calculus.

Hence why he should take calculus. But these sorts of things aren't used on anywhere near a day-to-day basis unless you're involved in specific areas of research, and even then, they're still fairly simplistic.

Like I said, it walks you step by step through the fundamental concepts, how to understand the equations, manipulate them (albeit in a rudimentary and fundamental way), and essentially utilize it to solve all sorts of complex Fourier Transform problems, etc. that a Spectroscopist would probably use in every biochemical assays, etc.

Fourier transforms are (to the best of my knowledge) only used in x-ray crystallography and more predominantly in NMR/EPR (they're the basis of spectrum interpretation for every pulsed instrument). Nevertheless, FFT's are done by software almost 100% of the time, meaning biochemists don't need to understand them and (at least with respect to the ones I've come across) probably couldn't care less about them... they have better things to do.

 

[zep]

All kinetics involving biochemical equations require calculus. Drug absorption, drug metabolism, and drug/metabolite clearance require calculus. Insulin clearance requires calculus. Channel conductance requires calculus. FRET requires calculus. Radiation oncology requires calculus.

All of these areas have algebraic ways to solve the relevant problems. Calculus helps, and of course solutions derived from the use of calculus are more valuable to most of us, but in the end it is not required. I solve for channel conductances every day and I can promise you that I only use calculus in unusual circumstances (and I'm in biophysics!). When you are teaching someone the basic principles of metabolism or membrane physiology, you do not begin with calculus-based explanations. In fact, you rarely need to implement them at all for most applications.

I would only agree in that higher level math is useful. I know of no one in our biochemistry department except for the structural guys that regularly use calculus.

Edit: like frick said 👍 .

 

[OTheHorror]

I'm going to have to disagree with the general consensus on this and say that it is important that you get as much math as you can. The more maths you take and understand, the farther you can take your research on the PhD side, especially in biochemistry, as the future is going to be about predictive modeling. If you've ever read any papers about modeling, you know that the math is quite intensive, so much so that some have suggested that mathematicians will be the pioneers in protein engineering, at least as far as predicting protein structure.

In addition, other areas of research are best done with mathematically-derived modeling, as it is much cheaper.

I find that as I progress into my PhD that my mathematics background (including Cal 3/Diff Equ) is not wholly sufficient.

My PhD is in biomedical engineering, so I may have over-generalized...am I incorrect?

 

[zep]

My PhD is in biomedical engineering, so I may have over-generalized...am I incorrect?

Yes your incorrect... . No I'm j/k, for modeling purposes, you are absolutely correct. Then again, it is rare to find biologists (and even chemists for that matter) who have anything more than a diff EQ background and as such, most biomedical scientists do not do the modeling themselves. We have always collaborated with a couple of computational guys who helped us with intensive modeling and it seems that that is a common way to go these days. There is only so much time - to be a biologist and a math-a-magician is difficult by todays standards.

Re the OP, it never hurts to have as much math as your schedule permits, but 9 chances out of 10, you will not tap very far into that knowledge as you progress in your graduate biochem work.

 

[HotSteamingTurd]

Having finished the PhD portion of my training in biochemistry, I can say that I did not need any special math knowledge. I've actually forgotten all of the calculus, linear algebra, and basic division I learned in my years of schooling. There's no need to "brush up" on certain math skills. Now, I didn't take any courses related to computational biochemistry which would require Pchem knowledge, statistics, eigenschmeigenvalues, etc. But maybe you can avoid those courses if you're really not interested in them.