Re: what subjects are involved in the programme Biochemistry

Hi Shadrach,

Thanks for your question. I teach Biochemistry, as well as Molecular Biology, so I can tell you a little something about my class.

First of all, the simple description of biochemistry is that it is the study of the chemistry of living organisms. That is still sort of vague, so I'll narrow it down by saying that it is a study of the chemical processes that make biological processes work. By biological processes, I mean things like metabolism, protein synthesis, DNA replication, etc., all the things that our cells do.

The word 'biochemistry' is sometimes also used as a code to distinguish between various subsets of these biological processes. Some people distinguish subjects that pertain to proteins from subjects that pertain to nucleic acids (DNA & RNA). Nucleic acid subjects are called 'molecular biology' while protein subjects are called 'biochemistry'. This may be a historical artifact of proteins having been discovered and understood earlier than nucleic acids.

For the purpose of answering your question, I am not going to use biochemistry as code for protein subjects, but here is a list of the topics that are covered in the syllabus of my class; I think you can see that the first half deals more with proteins and the second half deals more with nucleic acids.

Biochemistry topics : Amino acids, Biosynthesis of amino acids, Feedback regulation in biosynthetic pathways, Amino acids as precursors, Nitrogen fixation, Protein composition and structure, Structure-Function relationships, Enzymes, thermodynamics and kinetics, inhibition, Metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, metabolic pathways, lipid metabolism, fatty acid synthesis and degredation, membrane bound proteins, structure and membrane transport, Photosynthesis, Oxidative phosphorylation pathways, Genetic vs. biochemical mechanisms of regulation, Structure and biosynthesis of nucleotides, Deoxyribonucleotide formation, nucleotide degradation, Molecular genetics, DNA structure, Molecular cloning techniques and enzymes, DNA sequencing, PCR, DNA Supercoiling, DNA replication, DNA damage and repair mechanisms, Recombination and mobile genetic elements, Transcription, RNA Polymerase, post-transcriptional, RNA processing, Control of prokaryotic gene expression, Phage lambda as a paradigm of gene expression, Translation, the genetic code and its discovery, tRNAs, ribosomes, antibiotics, Protein folding, chaperones, chaperonins, Prions, Protein clevage, Post-translational processing, protein turnover, Eukaryotic genome organization and structure, Viruses, retroviruses and viroids, Control of eukaryotic gene expression, Homeobox genes, Two-hybrid screens.

So, these topics constitute a 2 semester Biochemistry course. The focus of this course is the molecular and chemical interactions that make the processes on the list above possible. This course would follow logically from the topics in an Organic Chemistry course, and would serve as the basics for an advanced Molecular Biology course. If you are going to take a biochemistry course, it is probably a good idea to have taken chemistry and organic chemistry before hand. These pre-requisites are recommended for my class, and I find that the students who have taken them do much better in the course.

I hope this helps. You can get a very good idea about the subject matter of a Biochemistry class (or any science class for that matter) by looking through the text book for the class. I suggest taking a look at "Biochemistry" by L. Stryer.

Good luck!