Improvement of the Biochemistry Curriculum by Incorporation of Fluoresence and CD Spectroscopy

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Them Department of Chemistry at the State University of West Georgia is actively pursuing the modernization of its teaching laboratories by providing hands-on experience with modern instrumentation. Presently, we are making major changes in our curriculum as we convert to a semester based system. This provides an ideal opportunity to make dramatic changes in our biochemistry curriculum that address the significant changes that the field has recently undergone. Biochemistry has been revolutionized by techniques developed for manipulating DNA. These techniques have opened avenues of inquiry into the physical chemical nature of biological systems. Thus, physical biochemistry has increasingly become the fundamental basis of biochemical understanding. Since this background is often absent in the education of undergraduate biochemistry majors, we propose to restructure the present curriculum to reflect the contemporary biochemical outlook. In a novel approach we plan to combine the traditional topics of biochemistry with topics in physical biochemistry and spectroscopy of biological macromolecules. In the laboratory course we will use CD and fluorescence spectroscopy to explore areas such as structure, stability and dynamics of macromolecules, enzyme kinetics, protein folding and membrane dynamics. These spectroscopic techniques are not inordinately difficult techniques for students to Learn, and they can be readily applied in a laboratory course. The goal is for our students to be conversant in, and comfortable with a more physical chemical approach to biochemistry. Those that enter graduate school will have the confidence to pursue broader research interests, while those that seek positions in biotechnology will have experience in the instrumental techniques used by the industry. Many of the companies have broadly defined concerns in physical biochemistry (e.g., designing and engineering new enzymes, and minimizing aggregation in the recombinant production of therapeutic proteins).