Course Objectives

The objectives of the Metabolic Biochemistry course are to provide a comprehensive understanding of human metabolism in the following areas: enzymology and protein structure and function; energy releasing and energy consuming metabolic processes; the regulation of synthesis and breakdown of sugars, lipids, nucleic acids, and amino acids; the biochemistry of specialized biological material.

The course will be presented as two-hour blocks of lectures from 9:00 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays (with a few exceptions as noted in the schedule) throughout most of the semester. Small group conferences will be held on Mondays from 3:00 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. The course subject matter will be presented in three sections:

  I.   Protein structure and function

  II.   Energy generation/Energy storage and mobilization

  III.   Metabolism of cell components/Cellular biochemistry

For each section, a syllabus will be available which contains lecture outlines, supporting visual material, reading assignments, and problems and discussion questions for conferences. Supplemental material is available through Blackboard ( https://bb.uth.tmc.edu ) . A block examination will be given at the end of each section. Section I is half the length of the other two sections and will have a shorter exam. Lectures are presented simultaneously with the medical students, but the examinations and emphasis of material will be different. Please note that graduate students will begin two weeks after the medical students begin and will not be held responsible for the molecular biology section covered by the medical students.

Reading assignments will be made in the following texts:

Devlin, T. A., Textbook of Biochemistry with Clinical Correlations, 5 th Edition , Wiley-Liss, 2002.

Marks, D. B . Biochemistry, 3rd Edition , (Board Review Series) Williams & Wilkins, 1999.