<p>I'm taking a biochem course (intermediary metabolism) this semester. The prof assigns assigned readings and required problem sets per lecture, and there are 3 lectures per week, with each lecture lasting an hour. So far, it covered reaction kinetics, glycolysis, glycogenolysis, glycogensis, and gluconeogenesis. As the course proceeds, it will also deal with lipids and nucleic acids.</p>
<p>I have no particular difficulty with the course. The only problem is that it takes too much time to stay on top of it. The amount and the pace at which material is covered is overwhelming. The prof expects us to memorize all the names of enzymes, substrates, products, as well as their structures, in addition to purpose of each step. Sure, each step, name of enzymes, all makes sense, but it takes so much time to digest them. I feel like the course is 2 normal courses combined into one. I would say it's even harder than orgo. The prof even said that the course is only going to become worse as it proceeds. It takes so much time out of me, much more than estimated, leaving me not much time for other things. So I'm thinking if my studying method can be improved in any way. What I do is I read the text before lecture while taking notes. I attend lecture religiously and always pay attention. Then I try to do assigned problems (these are not for marks) and ask the prof what I'm not sure about. Of these, reading the text while taking notes takes the most time (at least 2 hours per doing assigned reading while taking notes, and there are 3 assigned readings per week, so this category gets at least 6 hours per week). As well, doing one problem set and checking answers takes about 2 hours, and there are 3 problem sets per week, totaling a minimum of 6 hours a week.
For those of you who already took intermediary metabolism either in college or in med school, I'm interested in knowing if there are better, more time-saving study methods to succeed in the course.</p>
<p>In med school, we covered glycolysis, TCA cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, alpha, beta, gamma fatty acid oxidation, pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, urea cycle, glycogen synthesis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, nucleic acid synthesis and breakdown, fatty acid synthesis, anaerobic oxidation, and pentose phosphate pathway in 4 days.</p>
<p>So, um, yea...</p>
<p>It helps if you can visualize how all of these pathways are interconnected since the metabolites of one pathway can be used for another pathway.</p>
<p>Try to draw, rather than memorize, a diagram relating all the substrates and end products. Treat each reaction as a "neighborhood" and link neighborhoods with "roads" to provide appropriate substrate to other neighborhoods. Be prepared to redraw the whole thing several times. By the time you're done, you'll know it.</p>
<p>As Norcalguy points out, this won't be the last time you study intermediary metabolism.</p>
<p>My biochem class last semester was similar. It was a 5-credit class (including lab), and condensed 2 semesters of biochem into 1. I would echo the above posts in how to study for it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In med school, we covered glycolysis, TCA cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, alpha, beta, gamma fatty acid oxidation, pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, urea cycle, glycogen synthesis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, nucleic acid synthesis and breakdown, fatty acid synthesis, anaerobic oxidation, and pentose phosphate pathway in 4 days.
[/quote]
In 4 days? Just how is that possible? But were the material tested in the same breadth/depth as in an undergrad biochem course? For example, did the prof make students draw out all the intermediates, memorize all their names and enzymes as well as each step of reactions? I can't see how med schools cover all that in just 4 days, especially if some med students never took a biochem in undergrad.</p>
<p>Like most things you'll learn in med school, the material is presented briefly and then you'll be expected to memorize/learn everything on your own. We didn't really need to know a ton of detail on each pathway. For example for glycolysis, we needed to know the first few steps: glucose-->glucose-6-phosphate-->fructose-6-phosphate-->fructose-1-6-bisphosphate---------->pyruvate-->acetyl CoA. We had to know the key enzymes hexokinase, phosphofructokinase-1, pyruvate kinase, the dehydrogenases and their regulation. For example, we had to know PFK-1 is positively regulated by AMP, fructose-2,6-bisphosphate, fructose-6-phosphate and negatively regulated by ATP, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate, glucagon, etc. And obviously you had to know that you get 2 NADH and 2 ATP and 2 pyruvates from each cycle. </p>
<p>About that level of detail for each pathway.</p>
<p>And that constituted 4 days of lectures for us. Obviously, that wasn't everything we learned in the lecture that week. That was just the biochem component. We were also learning genetics and cell bio at the same time since we have an integrated curriculum.</p>
<p>The exam tested 5 weeks worth of lectures and the mean was a 87% so the material couldn't have been too hard. Med students generally do whatever is necessary to get the job done.</p>
<p>NCG is understating the case a little, I think. We covered it in four days at my school, but that was as one of four classes -- four days, yes, but while we were also balancing gross anatomy, physiology, and histology. So four days, sure, but that was about 1/5th of what we learned in those four days. (Gross anatomy, in my subjective weighting, counts double.)</p>
<p>And we weren't tested on every single intermediate/enzyme/name, but we certainly could have been tested on any given one of them. We did NOT have to push electrons, if that's what you mean by "each step of reactions." Moreover, we had to learn the associated diseases, breakdowns in the pathways, the regulation and regulators involved, and the relevant feedback cycles.</p>
<p>Any of us who had taken biochem in college found that it was useless. My undergrad biochem class covered DNA replication, the TCA cycle, glycolysis, and kinetics. Those all came up again, but in much more depth... and with a lot of other stuff, too.</p>
<p>And simply memorizing the structures of the intermediates isn't useful. Many of our questions were more conceptual. For example, what happens when your blood sugar is low? You'll stimulate glycogen breakdown in the muscle and liver, take up free fatty acids and ketoacids in the muscle, start fatty acid oxidation, make glucose de novo and export it from the liver, make ketone bodies in the liver, hydrolyze fatty acids in fat cells. Obviously, in this one question alone, you have to know something about glycogen breakdown, fatty acid oxidation, gluconeognesis, ketone bodies synthesis, and lipase-mediated hydrolysis of fatty acids. But, do you need to know the 5th intermediate in the synthesis of a ketone body? No. Should you know what ketone bodies are synthesized from (acetyl CoA from fatty acid oxidation), where they're synthesized (liver), where they're used (heart/brain), when they're released (fasting state), and the basic structure? Yes. </p>
<p>That's why it's so important to know how each of these pathways are interrelated and which pathways are inhibited and which pathways are stimulated in which situations.</p>
<p>^ lol thats exactly what our first biochem test was on last week. The first test was all about nutrition and fuel biochem. We had to know all of that about ketone bodies, pathophys of related disorders like DM and starvation, fuel breakdown, etc., and we still haven't started getting in depth into the pathways. We're starting that with glycolosis this Thursday.</p>
<p>And definitely +1 to what BDM said about the undergrad biochem courses being useless. I didn't take it in undergrad, and all my friends who did don't really have a leg up on my knowledge-wise. They might have a little bit once we get in depth into the mechanisms this week, but again, we won't actually have to draw out structures or where electrons go and whatnot.</p>
<p>The prof is a bit demanding for an undergrad course in that she also gives us such medically-related or application questions on problem sets and exam in addition to memorization questions (I had my first midterm today). For example, one question on problem sets asked why giving a patient a glucose 6-phosphate instead of glucose as food source is useless. It's because GLUT transporters in plasma membrane can only let unphosphorylated intermediates into cytosol for glycolysis.
If you radio-labelled carbon 5 in original glucose, what carbon would be labelled in lactate? Carbon 2 (This has to do with flipping of the carbon numbering caused by aldolase reaction on fructose 1,6-bisphosphate.) Also, today's midterm had a question asking about the consequence of giving a cell an arsenate, a molecule structurally similar to phosphate but much less stable, to glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate in the presence of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase. What would happen is that the arsenate would initially latch onto glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate to form 1-arsenate 3-phosphate glycerate (or something like that, I don't remember the actual name), but then it's much more unstable than 1,3-bisphosphate glycerate so it would prefer to get hydrolyzed and stay dissociated as arsenate and glycerate 3-phosphate. The net result is that phosphoglycerate kinase that follows has no substrate (1,3-bisphosphate glycerate) that it can act on to make 2 ATPs. So basically, we would go from glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate to 3-phosphate glycerate and skip this ATP-making step. 2 ATPs would still be made at the final step catalyzed by pyruvate kinase, but then the net ATP will be 0 because 2 ATPs were previously used up in preparatory phase.</p>
<p>The first problem you might see in med school. We had to memorize GLUT 1-5, where they're found, what their substrates are, and with what affinity they bind glucose/fructose.</p>
<p>Question #2 is pretty useless but something an anal teacher would test.</p>
<p>I like question #3. It forces you to think a little bit and is most similar to the kind of biochem questions I got in undergrad.</p>
<p>What helps in memorizing the pathways, respective enzymes, co-enzymes, ATPs used up etc, are if you have a dry erase board in your room. Write up the cycle. Visualize it while memorizing each step and corresponding details.</p>
<p>For each hour of Biochem work in class, one generally needs twice as many hours of self study at the minimum. </p>
<p>It may be very painful now but it will pay off in the end because this will provide you an incredible insight into many disease processes.</p>
<p>I definitely second the suggestion of a dry erase board. I used mine all the time in my undergrad biochem class, and I still use it all the time.</p>
