CHEM C164
Free Radicals in Biology and Medicine
Description: Lecture, three hours. Enforced requisites: courses 153A and either 153B or 153C, with grades of C- or better. Biochemcial reactivity of dioxygen, its role in mitochondrial metabolism, neurodegenerative diseases, apoptosis, and aging. Discussion of radical reactions, how they are harnessed to achieve enzyme catalysis, and how free radicals contribute to or regulate essential biological processes. These same reactions run amok under certain types of stress and can contribute to wide variety of diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Huntington's, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases), mitochondrial diseases, atherosclerosis, and aging. Concurrently scheduled with course C264. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Chem C164 is easy and hard at the same time - easy in the sense that the workload is fairly light; you essentially have to write two papers about research articles, give one group presentation, and take a midterm exam (and that's the gist of the class). However, the material is rather challenging - this class is almost entirely based on research papers, which was quite a learning curve for me, being a student who is not involved in research. The first half of the course consists of Dr. Clarke lecturing on free radicals and providing important background of the topic. The second half of the course is all the student group presentations - it's really chill and you just sit back and listen to the presentations. However, to understand the presentations you have to really pay attention and be focused. Yet, I would say that my time in this class wasn't wasted - I learned quite a bit about the application of free radicals into various areas of medicine. Personally, my presentation was about the involvement of reactive oxygen species in antibiotics, which I thought was very interesting. Other groups studied various diseases (like Alzheimers) or other biological phenomena and their relation to free radicals. Grading is this class is pretty lenient - Dr. Clarke and her TA weren't super picky about the essays and presentations and they were always so encouraging :) Dr. Clarke is just a really sweet person in general and it was quite fun taking a class with her. Also, 40 points of extra credit were offered this quarter in the form of writing up summaries of research presentations (which amounted to 4% of the overall course grade), so that was a plus. Overall, I definitely recommend this class for a very interesting and doable biochem elective! I'm not sure when this class will be offered next though - when I took it, it hadn't been offered for several years haha.
Spring 2020 - Chem C164 is easy and hard at the same time - easy in the sense that the workload is fairly light; you essentially have to write two papers about research articles, give one group presentation, and take a midterm exam (and that's the gist of the class). However, the material is rather challenging - this class is almost entirely based on research papers, which was quite a learning curve for me, being a student who is not involved in research. The first half of the course consists of Dr. Clarke lecturing on free radicals and providing important background of the topic. The second half of the course is all the student group presentations - it's really chill and you just sit back and listen to the presentations. However, to understand the presentations you have to really pay attention and be focused. Yet, I would say that my time in this class wasn't wasted - I learned quite a bit about the application of free radicals into various areas of medicine. Personally, my presentation was about the involvement of reactive oxygen species in antibiotics, which I thought was very interesting. Other groups studied various diseases (like Alzheimers) or other biological phenomena and their relation to free radicals. Grading is this class is pretty lenient - Dr. Clarke and her TA weren't super picky about the essays and presentations and they were always so encouraging :) Dr. Clarke is just a really sweet person in general and it was quite fun taking a class with her. Also, 40 points of extra credit were offered this quarter in the form of writing up summaries of research presentations (which amounted to 4% of the overall course grade), so that was a plus. Overall, I definitely recommend this class for a very interesting and doable biochem elective! I'm not sure when this class will be offered next though - when I took it, it hadn't been offered for several years haha.
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