CHEM 153B
Biochemistry: DNA, RNA, and Protein Synthesis
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; tutorial, one hour. Requisite: course 153A or 153AH. Recommended: Life Sciences 2, 3, and 23L, or 7A and 7B. Nucleotide metabolism; DNA replication; DNA repair; transcription machinery; regulation of transcription; RNA structure and processing; protein synthesis and processing. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
He presented nucleotide synthesis and metabolism, which isn't the most exciting stuff but he was very thorough and took the time to explain the main points. True he doesn't have powerpoint slides but his notes were provided and had everything important in them. I liked him a lot, really a wisecracker and super laid back for a chemist. People thought he was corny but I found him really entertaining and very knowledgable. His true/false are notorious but just know the material and the main points (which he stresses by raising his eyebrows and talking louder...) and you won't be fooled. I would definitely take him again, he's a really friendly and intelligent guy.
He presented nucleotide synthesis and metabolism, which isn't the most exciting stuff but he was very thorough and took the time to explain the main points. True he doesn't have powerpoint slides but his notes were provided and had everything important in them. I liked him a lot, really a wisecracker and super laid back for a chemist. People thought he was corny but I found him really entertaining and very knowledgable. His true/false are notorious but just know the material and the main points (which he stresses by raising his eyebrows and talking louder...) and you won't be fooled. I would definitely take him again, he's a really friendly and intelligent guy.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - This was definitely a pretty rigorous course, more so than 153A and perhaps even 153C. There is a lot of material to cover in order to go over the details, mechanisms, and regulation of RNA/DNA synthesis, polymerization, repair, and degradation, so the class is pretty fast paced and unforgiving if you fall behind. Despite that, I found the material to be very interesting and Stefan was a pretty engaging lecturer. It's clear he has a very deep appreciation for biochemistry and wants to share that. To that end, I think he was also pretty good at effectively conveying his knowledge to the class. He's also very responsive via email and on the Canvas discussion board, which really helps to alleviate confusion. The homework for this class was also pretty easy because you would only be assigned ~1/4 of the total assignment and would then share that with your discussion section while getting the other 3/4 from other students. If you had the time I'd recommend trying all 4 beforehand because sometimes they can be good practice. Lecture attendance was mandatory and enforced with iClicker, but I don't think it made up a significant portion of the grade. The biggest factor for your grade were the exams, which were difficult and very long to the point that I don't think a single person left early during either midterm. The averages were in the 70 range but with a pretty high SD, and Stefan said he planned on adjusting it after the first midterm despite not following through on that. This did cause some stress but the grading scheme meant that about an 85 above was an A and he offered extra credit assignments as well as simply for turning in your cheat sheet after the exam. I think he also might have curved the class but I'm not too certain on that one. In all, it's a very dense class with some difficult exams but Stefan does a very good job of explaining the material and encouraging you to dig deeper and find an appreciation for the machinery along with the biochemical experiments that elucidated them.
Spring 2025 - This was definitely a pretty rigorous course, more so than 153A and perhaps even 153C. There is a lot of material to cover in order to go over the details, mechanisms, and regulation of RNA/DNA synthesis, polymerization, repair, and degradation, so the class is pretty fast paced and unforgiving if you fall behind. Despite that, I found the material to be very interesting and Stefan was a pretty engaging lecturer. It's clear he has a very deep appreciation for biochemistry and wants to share that. To that end, I think he was also pretty good at effectively conveying his knowledge to the class. He's also very responsive via email and on the Canvas discussion board, which really helps to alleviate confusion. The homework for this class was also pretty easy because you would only be assigned ~1/4 of the total assignment and would then share that with your discussion section while getting the other 3/4 from other students. If you had the time I'd recommend trying all 4 beforehand because sometimes they can be good practice. Lecture attendance was mandatory and enforced with iClicker, but I don't think it made up a significant portion of the grade. The biggest factor for your grade were the exams, which were difficult and very long to the point that I don't think a single person left early during either midterm. The averages were in the 70 range but with a pretty high SD, and Stefan said he planned on adjusting it after the first midterm despite not following through on that. This did cause some stress but the grading scheme meant that about an 85 above was an A and he offered extra credit assignments as well as simply for turning in your cheat sheet after the exam. I think he also might have curved the class but I'm not too certain on that one. In all, it's a very dense class with some difficult exams but Stefan does a very good job of explaining the material and encouraging you to dig deeper and find an appreciation for the machinery along with the biochemical experiments that elucidated them.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Silkworth is currently my favorite professor in the biochemistry department. Between 153A and 153C, I would say that I enjoyed 153B the most. However, there is SOOOOO much material that's taught in this course. It literally takes the central dogma (DNA --> RNA ---> Proteins) and tells you EVERYTHING about it. The trick to doing well in this course is very simple: Answer all the "what you should know" questions slides in the powerpoint. Do that, and ur pretty much golden for the exams. you don't need to attend any office hours (I didn't even once) or redo the clicker questions. And the best way to answer those "what you should know" questions is to record each lecture on your phone. After class, re-listen to the lectures, and use the recordings to answer the "what you should know" questions. I knew from previous students that this course was going to be hard, so I prepared myself. Going to tutorial also helps as well, cause silkworth dumbs the concepts down in tutorial. Make sure not to lose points over dumb things, like not attending discussion, or not taking the CCLE quizzes seriously (the answers to the CCLE quizzes are from lecture btw), or not doing the clickers. Don't think you can study all the material for this class 2 days before the exam. It ain't happening. Study the slides a bit each day (literally no more than 1 hour), and you will be fine. The average for both midterms was around 75%; for the exams, you will definitely need the whole time length, so be ready in that regard. I'm pretty sure this class is curved to having the average be a B/B+, so don't worry too much about it. Good luck to you all
Fall 2019 - Silkworth is currently my favorite professor in the biochemistry department. Between 153A and 153C, I would say that I enjoyed 153B the most. However, there is SOOOOO much material that's taught in this course. It literally takes the central dogma (DNA --> RNA ---> Proteins) and tells you EVERYTHING about it. The trick to doing well in this course is very simple: Answer all the "what you should know" questions slides in the powerpoint. Do that, and ur pretty much golden for the exams. you don't need to attend any office hours (I didn't even once) or redo the clicker questions. And the best way to answer those "what you should know" questions is to record each lecture on your phone. After class, re-listen to the lectures, and use the recordings to answer the "what you should know" questions. I knew from previous students that this course was going to be hard, so I prepared myself. Going to tutorial also helps as well, cause silkworth dumbs the concepts down in tutorial. Make sure not to lose points over dumb things, like not attending discussion, or not taking the CCLE quizzes seriously (the answers to the CCLE quizzes are from lecture btw), or not doing the clickers. Don't think you can study all the material for this class 2 days before the exam. It ain't happening. Study the slides a bit each day (literally no more than 1 hour), and you will be fine. The average for both midterms was around 75%; for the exams, you will definitely need the whole time length, so be ready in that regard. I'm pretty sure this class is curved to having the average be a B/B+, so don't worry too much about it. Good luck to you all
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - I had the absolute displeasure of listening to this so-called "Dr. Heather Tienson-Tseng" for the past 10 weeks. Let me start by sharing with you an excerpt from the final email to the class as she posts final grades: . " I know some of you may be disappointed with your grade, and I am sorry about that. However, they are final. Grades cannot be changed; no matter how much you whine or beg. " . Whine or beg. These are the words she uses to address her class. I have never met such an arrogant, rude, and downright unpleasant person in my life. Let me put the personality complaints aside and tell you about the exams. The first exam was incredibly easy with a median score of 84%. Being so high, she sends us an email about how she is surprised and essentially wants/expects a lower average. We all get very nervous for the second exam, so we study very hard to prepare. Boom, second exam results come in and the average is a 50% with a HIGHEST SCORE of a 72%. The exam was IMPOSSIBLE to do well on, and was obviously designed for students to fail (hence the average). She comes into the class smiling the next day, without any sort of apology for such a terrible exam. I knew it was completely on purpose to lower the overall average grades of the class. Final exam was not so bad with an average of a 73%. A 90% overall grade was the A cutoff. . The course was rather boring and uninteresting. The material was super easy until the end of the second midterm material where it suddenly picked up and was way too fast. She decided to lecture a massive amount of material in week 10 when our final was on Sunday (so Friday lecture was tested on in depth less than 2 days later). She never told us anything about what we were expected to know for exams except "look at the learning outcomes." This was hugely misleading since none of the learning outcomes for a particular section said we would be required to draw the mechanism of RNA splicing, but there it is on the 50 minute midterm. She was so unclear on what we had to know that we would spend hours memorizing meaningless details that were never tested on. . The curve in this class is extremely weak. You barely get 3-4% grade boost at the B+/A levels. With a midterm of 50% average. Tell me how this is fair to the students. Clearly, she does not care about her students and is teaching purely for a paycheck and to banter to her top 2 favorite students about how women scientists don't get recognized for Nobel prizes. . If you can avoid her, then BY ALL MEANS steer clear. Her course is boring, unforgiving in terms of grades at the B+/A levels, and she doesn't show any care for her students' success. She wrote a midterm to be impossible on purpose to bring her class average down because she simply doesn't want to give out more than 20% A's. What kind of professor does this? . A bad one.
Spring 2019 - I had the absolute displeasure of listening to this so-called "Dr. Heather Tienson-Tseng" for the past 10 weeks. Let me start by sharing with you an excerpt from the final email to the class as she posts final grades: . " I know some of you may be disappointed with your grade, and I am sorry about that. However, they are final. Grades cannot be changed; no matter how much you whine or beg. " . Whine or beg. These are the words she uses to address her class. I have never met such an arrogant, rude, and downright unpleasant person in my life. Let me put the personality complaints aside and tell you about the exams. The first exam was incredibly easy with a median score of 84%. Being so high, she sends us an email about how she is surprised and essentially wants/expects a lower average. We all get very nervous for the second exam, so we study very hard to prepare. Boom, second exam results come in and the average is a 50% with a HIGHEST SCORE of a 72%. The exam was IMPOSSIBLE to do well on, and was obviously designed for students to fail (hence the average). She comes into the class smiling the next day, without any sort of apology for such a terrible exam. I knew it was completely on purpose to lower the overall average grades of the class. Final exam was not so bad with an average of a 73%. A 90% overall grade was the A cutoff. . The course was rather boring and uninteresting. The material was super easy until the end of the second midterm material where it suddenly picked up and was way too fast. She decided to lecture a massive amount of material in week 10 when our final was on Sunday (so Friday lecture was tested on in depth less than 2 days later). She never told us anything about what we were expected to know for exams except "look at the learning outcomes." This was hugely misleading since none of the learning outcomes for a particular section said we would be required to draw the mechanism of RNA splicing, but there it is on the 50 minute midterm. She was so unclear on what we had to know that we would spend hours memorizing meaningless details that were never tested on. . The curve in this class is extremely weak. You barely get 3-4% grade boost at the B+/A levels. With a midterm of 50% average. Tell me how this is fair to the students. Clearly, she does not care about her students and is teaching purely for a paycheck and to banter to her top 2 favorite students about how women scientists don't get recognized for Nobel prizes. . If you can avoid her, then BY ALL MEANS steer clear. Her course is boring, unforgiving in terms of grades at the B+/A levels, and she doesn't show any care for her students' success. She wrote a midterm to be impossible on purpose to bring her class average down because she simply doesn't want to give out more than 20% A's. What kind of professor does this? . A bad one.
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