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

西乔治亚州立大学化学系通过提供现代仪器的实践经验，积极追求其教学实验室的现代化。目前，我们正在对课程进行重大调整，因为我们要转换为学期制。这提供了一个理想的机会，使我们的生物化学课程发生重大变化，以解决该领域最近发生的重大变化。操纵DNA的技术使生物化学发生了革命性的变化。这些技术开辟了探索生物系统的物理化学性质的途径。因此，物理生物化学日益成为生物化学认识的基础。由于这一背景在本科生物化学专业的教育中经常缺失，我们建议对现有课程进行重组，以反映当代生物化学观点。以一种新颖的方法，我们计划将传统的生物化学主题与物理生物化学和生物大分子光谱学主题结合起来。在实验课程中，我们将使用CD和荧光光谱来探索大分子的结构、稳定性和动力学、酶动力学、蛋白质折叠和膜动力学等领域。这些光谱技术对学生来说不是特别难学的技术，它们可以很容易地应用于实验课程。我们的目标是让我们的学生熟悉和适应更物理的化学方法来研究生物化学。那些进入研究生院的人将有信心追求更广泛的研究兴趣，而那些寻求生物技术职位的人将拥有该行业使用的仪器技术的经验。许多公司在物理生物化学方面有广泛的关注（例如，设计和制造新的酶，以及在治疗性蛋白质的重组生产中最大限度地减少聚集）。

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).