Developing novel, engaging courses in food safety is necessary to train professionals in this discipline. Courses that are interactive and case-based encourage development of critical thinking skills necessary for identifying and preventing foodborne disease outbreaks. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of a case study…

In many Western science systems, funding structures increasingly stimulate academic research to contribute to practical applications, but at the same time the rise of bibliometric performance assessments have strengthened the pressure on academics to conduct excellent basic research that can be published in scholarly literature. We analyze the…

Mitochondria are surrounded by two membranes (outer and inner mitochondrial membrane) that separate two mitochondrial compartments (intermembrane space and matrix). Hundreds of proteins are distributed among these submitochondrial components. A simple biochemical/immunological procedure is described in this test to determine the localization of…

The Michaelis-Menten rate equation can be found in most general biochemistry textbooks, where the time derivative of the substrate is a hyperbolic function of two kinetic parameters (the limiting rate "V", and the Michaelis constant "K"[subscript M]) and the amount of substrate. However, fundamental concepts of enzyme kinetics can be difficult to…

Terms to be familiar with before you start to solve the test: ion exchange chromatography, polynucleotides, oligonucleotides, radioactive labeling, template, primer, DNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase, helicase, nucleoside triphosphates, nucleoside diphosphates, nucleoside monophosphates, nucleosides, 5'-end and 3'-end, bacteriophage,…

Histone acetylation plays a critical role during long-term memory formation. Several studies have demonstrated that the histone acetyltransferase (HAT) CBP is required during long-term memory formation, but the involvement of other HAT proteins has not been extensively investigated. The HATs CBP and p300 have at least 400 described interacting…

There are two well-known and often-quoted facts about Sub-Saharan Africa. One is that, in spite of significant progress made in recent years, Africa remains the least developed region in the world and is unlikely to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The other is that Africa fares very poorly in terms of research and innovation;…

Threshold concepts (TCs) are concepts that, when mastered, represent a transformed understanding of a discipline without which the learner cannot progress. We have undertaken a process involving more than 75 faculty members and 50 undergraduate students to identify a working list of TCs for biochemistry. The process of identifying TCs for…

Active-learning environments such as those found in a flipped classroom are known to increase student performance, although how these gains are realized over the course of a semester is less well understood. In an upper-level lecture course designed primarily for biochemistry majors, we examine how students attain improved learning outcomes, as…

Several [alpha]-oxocarboxylic acids play key roles in metabolism in plants and animals. However, there are inconsistencies between the structures as commonly portrayed and the reported acid ionization constants, which result because the acids are predominantly hydrated in aqueous solution; that is, the predominant form is RC(OH)[subscript 2]COOH…

Intermediary metabolism can be a complex area to study due to the inherent modularity of the catabolic biochemical processes. This article outlines a novel, cost-effective, and universally applicable teaching activity to enhance students understanding of the inter-relationship between the key processes of intermediary metabolism. A simple origami…

Our environment is under constant pressure and threat from various sources of pollution. Science students, in particular chemistry students, must not only be made aware of these issues, but also be taught that chemistry (and science) can provide solutions to such real-life issues. To this end, a newly developed biochemistry laboratory experiment…

For successful delivery of basic science topics for health-professional students, it is critical to reduce apprehension and illustrate relevance to clinical settings and everyday life. At the beginning of the Biochemistry course for Physician Assistants, a team-based assignment was designed to develop an understanding of the mechanism of action,…

Educators are exposed to a variety of stressors, which can lead to poorer teaching performance, burnout, and increased student misbehavior (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Although self-report measures of stress are most commonly used in education research, physiological measures of stress may also contribute to the understanding of educators'…

In this discovery-oriented laboratory experiment, students use solid-phase synthesis techniques to construct a dipeptide containing an unknown amino acid. Following synthesis and cleavage from the polymeric support, electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry is employed to identify the unknown amino acid that was used in the peptide coupling. This…