3 major themes, how are the connected to more than one topic and what you knew before, what knowledge have you gained?

Throughout the semester, this course has focused on three main objectives in relation to the fundamentals of biochemistry. First off would be the structure and function of the four major biomolecules (proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids). The structures in which these four are made up have been a topic of discussion since general biology. Nucleic acids are composed of nucleotides, proteins are made up of long amino acid sequences, carbohydrates are made by sugars and lipids are produced from fatty acids. It was a key component for us to be able to identify a compound as a protein or a carb, ECT...after studying the structures of them intensely. However, in biochemistry, we focused much on the mechanisms as well as their structures. For instance, the mechanism of proteins to act as enzymes to catalyze reactions. We study extensively the different types of enzymes used for different types of reactions and became more and more familiar as to which enzyme does what to each reaction by either looking at the name or viewing what has been altered between the reactants and the products.

Second objective that we studied thoroughly was the process for DNA replication. One of the main sub-objectives of this topic was to compare and contrast DNA replication within prokaryotes and eukaryotes. After examining the two it's always the case that eukaryotic replication is so much more complex compared to prokaryotic. Two mechanisms discussed are transcription and translation. These were also touched based on in general biology as well as genetics, but it was important that we looked at this in a biochemical sense and understand all the components embedded into these two topics. For instance the use of transcription factors as well as the in depth study of the genetic code.

Finally, the process of cellular metabolism was the last thoroughly discussed objective we encountered in this course. Obviously, we have all had background knowledge from, again, general biology and other disciplinary courses of biochemistry but we must look at this from a biochemical stand point and looking at it that way allows us to view each key compound and reaction in action of this process. Glycolysis and the Citric Acid Cycle where broken down into each little reaction that takes place and we were shown the presence of each individual enzyme required for each reaction as well as being able to identify which type of reaction it is. Not only did we just discuss the metabolism of carbohydrates but also lipids and a comparison of the two as to which is more energy sufficient as well as which is better in the case of storage capacity. This is a topic to which I have never touched based on so I found it to be rather interesting to learn about and it was very easy to understand because of how extensively we have studied these two biomolecules.