BIOSCI106

A paper entirely about biochemistry. That freaked me out. I didn’t think I could do an entire semester of the last few weeks of BioSci101 when we did biochemistry.

This paper wasn’t as dreadfully bad as I thought it was going to be. But that does not mean I enjoyed it. Thankfully, it didn’t suck up too much of my time in second semester, (you need all your time for MedSci), and I still managed to do pretty well.

Structure

Lectures

This paper is sectioned off into 7 blocks. Each one is taught by a different lecturer. Three are taught before midsemester break and three are taught after. Like all your first semester papers, this paper has three lectures per week. Other second semester papers have four per week.

1. Proteins — this section serves as an introduction to the world of proteins. You will learn about amino acids and how pH affects them; buffering; fibrous proteins; protein folding, misfolding and disease; protein stability; molecular recognition and flu drug discovery.
2. Enzymes — you will learn about enzyme characteristics and structure; enzyme kinetics; enzyme inhibition; control of enzyme; and the role ATP. I found this block to be one of the worst of the whole paper, just get through it — it isn’t particularly fun and the concepts will take a bit of thinking to get.
3. Carbohydrate Metabolism — this block is essentially an extension of biochemistry from BioSci101, except the lecturer is less entertaining. In this section you will learn about sugar structures (seriously, I understood this in Chem110, but his explanation confused me so much, so I went back to my chem notes and copied them out into my courseguide for this paper as it was a lottt better at explaining); glycolysis; the fates of pyruvate; the tricarboxylic acid cycle; electron transport & oxidative phosphorylation; blood glucose regulation; gluconeogenesis; glycogen synthesis and glycogenolysis. Go back to your 101 notes if need be, there is a lot of crossover. But yea, if you didn’t enjoy 101 biochemistry, this is probably your dreaded unit.
4. Signal Transduction — for me, this was my favourite unit of the paper as it was the simplest and I liked the lecturer. You will learn about different types of signals; hormonal control; different types of receptors; examples of receptor pathways; and the relationship of signal transduction to disease.
5. Nutrition and Antibiotics — in this block you will learn about micronutrients (vitamins); and the biochemistry of antibiotics.
6. Lipids — in my year, this was lectured by the same lecturer as the Nutrition & Antibiotics topic. You will learn about the breakdown of fatty acids; the synthesis of fatty acids; cholesterol biosynthesis, metabolism & heart disease; and white & brown adipose tissue. I found the last lecture of this topic quite interesting, as he talks about some very current research into combating obesity.
7. Plant Biochemistry — you may be wondering why the heck you have to learn about plants, but this is more about how things in plants are consumed by humans and the health effects of them. No photosynthesis, don’t panic. You will learn about vitamin C; nutritional enhancement through biotechnology; plant medicinals and maintaining world food production.

Laboratories

There are five 3-hour labs for this paper, one every two weeks. Labs for this paper are always pretty boring, so don’t go in with high hopes. You have an assignment sheet to complete during each lab and each lab has a pre-lab assignment. All five labs count towards your final grade. Lab content is not examined in the test/exam.

The pre-lab assignments are quizzes on Canvas that are open the week prior to your lab. Make sure to get this done before the start of your lab week, no matter what day your lab is on, as everyone has the same due-date. The pre-labs count towards your final mark for the lab, so try not to give away easy marks on these.

You don’t need to bring your safety glasses to your biology labs, just your lab coat. Make sure your hair is tied back if it is long.

1. Purification of Green Fluorescent Protein — in this lab, you will purify GFP from a mixture of other proteins and then you will determine the concentration and total mass of GFP in the sample.
2. Enzyme Action and Inhibition — in this lab, you will determine the rate of enzyme reaction for different experiments and use that to determine Km and Vmax. Later, you will be given a set of results, from which you have to determine Ki for an inhibitor. In my year, this lab was frustrating, with mistakes in the Excel spreadsheets formula that resulted in confusion for everyone in the lab, but that should be all sorted for you.
3. Measurement of Mitochondrial Electron Transport — in this lab, you will measure the rates of reaction with several different substrates and thus use this data to locate the site of action of malonate and rotenone. This lab looks at the respiratory reaction chain in mitochondria. This lab required a lot of back an forth from an incubator, timing and absorbance readings in the spectophotometer.
4. Signal Transduction — this lab is quite different, and doesn’t actually involve doing any experiments. You will be given results that you will use to determine the effect of different patients’ mutations on their receptor function and determine if candidates can be treated with a particular drug.
5. Antibiotic Resistance in E. Coli — in this lab, you will analyse plasmid DNA isolated from bacteria samples to determine whether they contain plasmids expressing antibiotic resistance genes and compare the growth of bacteria in the presence of antibiotic to confirm resistance to the indicated antibiotic.

The labs in this paper do feel rather repetitive as you spend a lot of your time micropipetting, timing and then using the spectrophotometer. By this semester, the “newness” of being in a lab at a university has worn-off, and I didn’t really look forward to labs at all. There were some people that enjoyed them though, so you’ll just have to hope you are one of those people!

At the start of each lab, the tutor will go through the common mistakes and model answers for the previous lab. After this, they will give you a run-down on what is going to happen in the lab you are in and they will go through some additional key points to what is in your manual. Take notes on a blank page in your lab manual during this, as they often happen to drop answers for the assignment sheet in their explanation.

Don’t be afraid to ask the demonstrators/tutor any questions you may have. You will find they are even helpful with the answers to your assignment sheet, if you ask in the right way. Never ask what the answer is though. I would just talk them through my thinking and have a discussion with them surrounding the assignment, and I found they offered very helpful tips here are there!

Bring a vivid marker to all your labs (even in other subjects — they are handy for naming things, and helping you remember what is what).

Assessment

Theory Component (80%)
- Online Canvas Lecture Quizzes (4%)
- Incourse Test (36%)
- Final Exam (40%)

Practical Component (20%)
- Laboratories (20%)

It is important to note that in any science subject, you must pass the theory and practical components separately in order to actually pass the subject. This means that you must get 10% (out of a possible 20%) in your labs/practical AND 40% (out of the 80%) in the theory to pass.

Online Canvas Lecture Quizzes

My year was the first year that they had these. They were watching how lecture quizzes went in Chem110 before deciding to implement them in 106.

There is a short MCQ on Canvas following each lecture. There are 34 quizzes in total, but the 4% will be calculated based on your marks from your best 23 quizzes. These open after the lecture you are streamed in and close one hour before the next lecture you are streamed in.

Incourse Test

There is a 90 question MCQ test halfway through the semester. It will be in the evening and lasts two hours (most likely 6:30–8:30pm). This tests the first three blocks of the course (Proteins, Enzymes and Carbohydrate Metabolism). After this test, you won’t be examined on this content again in this course! You can finally be rid of all things carbohydrates for the rest of the year!!!! The final exam does not examine this material. As this test examines half the course content, it is worth a lot (36%), which is only 4% less than the final exam, so make sure you are prepared!

Final Exam

The final exam also is a 90 question MCQ that lasts for two hours. This tests the final four blocks of the course (Signal Transduction, Nutrition & Antibiotics, Lipids and Plant Biochemistry).

Laboratories

Your lab mark incorporates both the mark from your pre-lab and your assignment sheet that you completed in your lab. So, if your pre-lab was worth 4 marks and your assignment was 16, you will have a final score out of 20 for the lab.

Just a tip for the assignment sheet, you can discuss answers with your partner, but do not write the same answer word-for-word as each other, as you can both lose marks for plagiarism. As there are five labs, each lab is worth 4% towards your final grade.

How I Studied

If you have read my BioSci101 post, this section will be quite similar.

In terms of time allocation for this being a non-core subject, as long as you are always up-to-date in terms of listening to lectures and your notes, then you will be fine. Too many people let themselves get behind on lectures because it was a non-core, and found themselves cramming lecture recordings in the hours before the test/exam.

Before the lecture, I would download the lecture slides and convert them to PowerPoint (I explained this in another post [see the section titled ‘Soda PDF’]). In the lecture, I would make notes in the ‘Notes’ section below the slides in PowerPoint. This meant all my notes were in one place.

Once I got home, I would condense and write out these notes (the ones on the lecture slide and the ones I typed) into the courseguide. This meant everything was in one place.

After doing this, I would immediately go and do the post-lecture quiz on Canvas. I would never do these before writing my notes out, as I found it was really helpful to have revised the content before doing the MCQ. I would write out each question onto a piece of paper (I wouldn’t copy the answer options) and then I would try figure out the answer. I would then check that the answer I got was one of the options. Then, just to double check, I would justify to myself why all the other options were wrong. Obviously this is quite pedantic for a quiz that is worth so little, but I found it hard to give away marks, no matter how small.

When it came time for the test/exam, I quickly typed up the notes in the courseguide in condensed form. This sounds like a waste of time, but I found it was actually the most time-efficient way to remind myself of all the notes I had not reviewed since the day of the lecture. I had to actively read all of my notes to condense them as it required me to actually think. Otherwise, I would completely zone-out reading through my notes because I was so tired and they weren’t exactly thrilling. Once I had typed out the notes, I would go and do past tests which I marked as I went. If I got things wrong, I would refer back to my notes to ensure I brushed up my knowledge.

I would do my 106 notes first once I got home from uni. This got them out of the way and made sure I kept up to date. This is really important for a subject that you are spending hardly any time on. If you try do MedSci first, you will spend your whole night on it and run out of time for your non-cores. When it is the last thing you want to do, your future-self will thank you for having stayed on top of your notes. It makes it much easier come exam/test time.

Ultimately for me this was a subject to survive, not enjoy. I just hope you can find more joy in it than I did!

Goodluck as always!