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Biochemistry 401G

Fall Semester
Course Description
Fundamentals of Biochemistry
Blackboard: http://elearning.uky.edu 

Course description:  Fundamentals of Biochemistry is designed for undergraduate and graduate students whose educational needs can be best satisfied by a one-semester biochemistry course.  Introductory chemistry, organic chemistry, and biology are prerequisites for enrollment in BCH401G.  Lecture supplements are provided for those students who completed the prerequisites in the past and who need to review key material from these courses.  BCH401G will introduce students to the general families of biomolecules that comprise biochemistry and the principles that integrate biochemistry with other chemical and biological disciplines.   

Instructors:  All instructors are faculty members in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry and most of us are located on the 1^st and 2nd floors of the BBSRB building (The new building across Limestone that is connected by a walkway over Limestone to the UK Kentucky Clinic). 

Textbook:  Students are strongly advised to purchase the textbook for this course:  Principles of Biochemistry, 4^th Edition, by Horton, Moran, Scrimgeour, Perry and Rawn, Prentice Hall Publishers.  This new edition has a number of useful problems at the end of each chapter.  In addition to the textbook, students should consider purchasing The Biochemistry Student Companion, 2nd edition by Scism.  The Student Companion provides additional problems.   

Medical Center Library Reserve (not the W. T. Young Library):  Two copies of the textbook and The Student Companion will be placed on reserve for limited checkout.  Making photocopies of the textbook or The Student Companion is forbidden under U.S. copyright law.   

All course information is located at Blackboard website:  https://elearning.uky.edu/  (alternative logon: http://myUK.uky.edu) 

The Website has the following Topics   

ANNOUNCEMENTS:         Check this several times each week for announcements.

COURSE INFORMATION: Contains the Syllabus, Course Description and Lecture Notes that you need to download before class and then bring with you to class.

COURSE DOCUMENTS:  Contains examples of the type of math skills you need to know for this course.        

ASSIGNMENTS:                 We have posted a compilation of all examination questions from prior years, the correct answer, and an explanation for the correct answer under this heading.  Students who practice these questions will be well prepared for the hour examinations.  We do not keep track of your responses and your scores are not part of your course grade.

COMMUNICATION:           Use this in any way that is helpful.

DISCUSSION BOARD:      Student questions for instructors about lectures or about other aspects of the course should be submitted here.  The answers will be posted here also.  This is the best way to have your questions answered because all students can benefit.

EXTERNAL LINKS:             Not something we use at the moment.

MY GRADES:                     Check you grades here.  if you do not see your grade check first with the Registrar to make sure you are registered.  If you are, then contact Dr. Dickson directly by e-mail at: bobd@uky.edu.  If there is a mistake in your grade contact Dr. Dickson 

For problems with Blackboard or to obtain a user account contact: http://www.uky.edu/Blackboard/ or the alternative site at https://elearning.uky.edu 

Examinations:  Three hour examinations and a comprehensive final examination will be administered in THM 107 as indicated on the course Syllabus, which will be handed out the first day of class and will be posted on Blackboard. 

“Old” examinations are posted on Blackboard, but the content of this year’s examinations may change depending on the instructor’s selection of topics and organization of the course.   

Short Papers (Graduate Students Only):  Graduate students enrolled in BCH401G will be required, in addition to taking the hour and final examinations, to complete a paper on an assigned topic in biochemistry.  The topic is how do the class of drugs called statins work to lower blood cholesterol.  An abstract of no more than 200 words will be evaluated by Dr. Dickson (bobd@uky.edu).  The paper should stress biochemistry including molecular mechanisms and structures while touching lightly on phenomenology and subject areas that are distantly related to biochemistry.  A printed copy of the paper must be given to Dr. Dickson by/on December 1^st.  The papers are limited to four pages in length including text, references, figures, and tables (the list of references does not count as part of the 4 page limit).  The papers must be single-spaced, must have font size 12 (prefer Arial type style just like this document) and must have 1" margins at the top, bottom, and sides.  Papers will be given one of three grades:  high pass, pass, or fail.  Papers that are not submitted by the due date or are not compliant with the typing requirements will be given a failing grade.  Literature references must be books or articles from scientific journals  – references to web sites are NOT ACCEPTABLE. 

"Make up" Examinations:  Students who miss an hour examination for whatever reason will not be given a make up examination.  Instead, the final examination will serve as the "make up" examination.  See the section below on Grading for Undergraduate Students or the one for Graduate Students.   

Auditors:  Students who wish to audit this course should see the course director.   

Grading for Undergraduate Students:  For undergraduates, grades will be determined on the basis of three hour examinations and a comprehensive final examination.  Each of the hour examinations and the final examination count as 25% of the final grade.  Students who fail to take an hour examination, for whatever reason, will have the final examination count more toward their final grade than 25%.  That is, if a student misses one hour examination, the other two hour examinations will count 25% each toward the final grade, and the final examination will count 50%.  If a student misses two hour examinations, the third hour examination will count 25% toward the final grade, and the final examination will count 75%.  If a student misses three hour examinations, the final examination will count 100% of the grade.  Students are strongly encouraged to take all of the hour examinations.  Students must take the final examination to receive a grade in this course.  The examinations are worth 100 points each for a total of 400 points.  

At the end of the course, all of the numerical grades will be compiled and rank ordered from highest to lowest.  Instructors will determine the final cutoffs for all letter grades assigned in this course.  Instructors have no preconceived notions as to where these cutoffs will occur.  In some courses, 90-100% is an A; 81-89% is a B and so forth.  This is not true in this course.  In last year's final grade distribution, an overall score of 86-100% secured an A grade whereas another year an overall score of 87-99% secured an A grade.  Therefore, it is very likely that these percentages will be slightly different in the current year.   

Grading for Graduate and Post-baccalaureate Students:  For graduate and post-baccalaureate students, grades will be determined on the basis of three hour examinations, a comprehensive final examination, and a short paper.  Post-baccalaureate students are defined (for the purposes of this course) as any student registered for this course who already has a bachelor's degree or better in any discipline from any university.  The University Registrar will determine who is a post-baccalaureate student.   

Each of the hour examinations and the final examination count 25% of the preliminary final grade.  Graduate and post-baccalaureate students who fail to take an hour examination, for whatever reason, will have the final examination count more towards their final grade than 25%.  That is, if a graduate student misses one hour examination, the other two hour examinations will count 25% each toward the preliminary grade, and the final examination will count 50%.  If a graduate or post-baccalaureate student misses two hour examinations, the third hour examinations will count 25% toward the preliminary grade, and the final examination will count 75%.  If a graduate or post-baccalaureate student misses three hour examinations, the final examination will count 100% of the preliminary grade.  Graduate and post-baccalaureate students are strongly encouraged to take all of the hour examinations.  Graduate and post-baccalaureate students must take the final examination to receive a grade in this course.  The examinations are worth 100 points each for a total of 400 points. 

At the end of the course, all of the numerical grades for undergraduates and graduate students will be compiled and rank ordered from highest to lowest.  Instructors will determine the final cutoffs for all letter grades assigned in this course.  Instructors have no preconceived notions as to where these cutoffs will occur.  In some courses at the University, 90-100% is an A; 81-89% is a B and so forth.  This is not true in this course.  After computing a numerical score based on the examinations, a preliminary course grade will be assigned.   

The short paper will influence the final course grades as shown in the following table.  For example, a graduate or post-baccalaureate student with a numerical score on the examinations equivalent to a B grade and a "high pass" on the short paper will receive an A grade in the course.  However, a graduate student with a preliminary course grade of E and a "high pass" on the paper will receive an E in the course.  That is, a "high pass" on the paper will not rescue a failing performance on the written examinations.   

Regrading examinations:  Students who believe that a mistake was made in the grading of an hour examination should re-submit the examination and a signed note that describes briefly which problem they want to have re-graded.  Examinations must be submitted to the course director, not the teaching assistant.  Requests for re-grading of a particular hour examination must be submitted before the next hour examination.  The examinations will be re-evaluated and returned with the subsequent hour examination.  Students should be aware that a random number of examinations will be copied prior to returning them to the class. 

Cheating:  No form of cheating will be tolerated.  Students are encouraged to read the Student Rights and Responsibilities with regard to cheating and plagiarism (http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/Code/), parts II-V.