CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY - CO
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Bibliography
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
There are no prerequisites for this integrated course.
The Chemistry and Biochemistry and General Biology modules, carried out in the first semester, do not require specific preliminary knowledge, but some basic notions of mathematics, including equivalences, proportions, powers and logarithms. The General Pharmacology module requires a basic knowledge of chemistry and biochemistry, learned in the previous module, and of anatomy and physiology carried out in the corresponding classes during the first year.
The Chemistry and Biochemistry part of the exam is in written form and consists of:
open-ended questions of progressive difficulty, aimed at ascertaining the general knowledge of the contents and basic information of the topics according to a criterion of essentiality and to the ability to critically discuss them. For this reason, students are allowed to consult during the test texts and didactic material used for the preparation. The answers are expected to be synthetic, straightforward and precise, and at the same time exhaustive. For this reason, the time available for the test is 45 minutes. The evaluation of the paper will only report errors, deficiencies and incompleteness. The correct formulation of the answers will be presented collectively, immediately after each student's vision of his/her already evaluated paper.
In exam sessions that include two appeals, it is advisable to plan to enroll in only one of them. In fact, in the case of serious insufficiency in the Chemistry and Biochemistry test sustained in a first appeal, the outcome in the subsequent appeal of the same session, especially if close to the date, is still very frequently negative.
b
For the general BIOLOGY module, the test consists of a quiz of 31 questions with 4 answers, one of which is correct.
If the teacher deems it necessary, an oral exam of 5-10 'can follow both partial tests,
The exam test relating to the PHARMACOLOGY module consists of 27 statements regarding the different topics covered, which the student must indicate whether true or false. The test also foresees the development of a topic dealt with during the course.
For the assessment, each correct statement of the "true or false" test will be worth one point and no points will be removed following incorrect answers. The open question can be worth from a minimum of -3 points to a maximum of 3 points
In order to have a sufficient evaluation (18), the sum of the mark obtained in the "true or false" test and that obtained in the open question must be 18/30. The exam is written, but any oral integration can take place on the basis of the evaluation of the paper or at the request of the students.
At the request of the students, the papers will be available to students for a week from the exam date and then definitively archived.
The integrated course exam is unique, as for all integrated courses, and includes all the disciplines that are part of it. Note that:
- the final score is unique, and represents an average of the assessments obtained in each module;
- insufficiency in a module compromises the outcome of the entire exam which must be repeated with a new registration.
The integrated course aims at providing students with the basic knowledge necessary to be able to understand:
the biological phenomena at the cellular and tissue levels;
the interaction between organism and drugs in normal and pathological conditions, and the possible therapeutic implications.
The course consists of the following modules:
- Chemistry and Biochemistry
- General biology
- General pharmacology
EXPECTED LEARNING RESULTS
At the end of the course, the student will be able to:
1. know the chemical bases of the structure of living matter and understand its interactions in the physiological environment
2. discuss the energy and kinetic requirements of biological reactions
3. know the function of the main classes of biomolecules; in particular, their metabolism in physiological and pathological conditions and the structure/function relationship of nucleic acids
4. distinguish between mitotic and meiotic phases and apply the genetic basis of heredity to family trees.
5. Discuss the regulation of cellular and systemic energy metabolism and the nutritional properties of the main food classes.
6. know the general principles that underlie the interaction between the human body and drugs and their mechanism of action
7. set a correct dosage
8. assess the risk related to the use of drugs in relation to various factors (route of administration, adverse effects, intolerance to drugs, drug interactions
9. manage, store and use drugs in the hospital setting.
10. Illustrate the main legislative provisions regarding the production and use of drugs
11. Discuss the preclinical and clinical study phases for the discovery of new drugs.
Chemistry and Biochemistry:
Aqueous solutions
Acid base balance
Organic compounds
Amino acids and general structure of proteins.
Kinetics and enzymatic reactions.
Bioenergetics.
Oxidative phosphorylation.
Carbohydrate, lipid, amino acid and nitrogen compounds metabolism.
Nucleic acids.
Metabolic interactions.
General biology:
Mendelism.
Structure and function of nucleic acids.
Transcription and Translation.
Bacterial recombination.
Chromosomes.
Cell duplication.
Mutations.
Molecular biology notions.
The PHARMACOLOGY course is structured in 8 lessons for a total of 15 hours concerning the following topics:
-Main drug delivery routes (2 hours);
- Pharmacokinetic elements (absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of drugs in healthy subjects and patients; setting of a correct dosage regimen) (5 hours);
-Pharmacodynamic elements (mechanism of action and variability of response to drugs) (3 hours);
-Pharmacology-toxicology topics (drug interaction, abuse, tolerance, addiction) (2 hours);
-Elements of pharmaceutical legislation (2 hours);
- Preclinical and clinical experimentation for the discovery of new drugs (1 hour).
Chemistry and biochemistry:
1) Aqueous solutions: water, solvation and electrolytic dissociation, hydrogen bonding, concentration of solutions
2) Acid base balance: definitions (strength of acids and bases pH, pK), buffer solutions, Handerson-Hasselbalch equation, physiological buffers
3) Organic compounds, classification and functional groups: alcohol, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, amines. Nomenclature and main characteristics. Main types of isomerism. Aromatic compounds.
4) Amino acids and general structure of proteins. Collagen. Myoglobin and hemoglobin. Cooperativity and allosterism.
5) Kinetics of reactions: enzymes and kinetics of enzymatic reactions
6) Bioenergetics: principles of thermodynamics. Free energy and spontaneous reactions. High energy bonds, redox potentials, redox pairs of particular biological importance.
7) Oxidative phosphorylation, tricarboxylic acid cycle, aerobic and anaerobic metabolism
8) Carbohydrates. Monosaccharides and polysaccharides. Glycogen metabolism.
9) Glycolysis, Gluconeogenesis and their regulation, pentose pathway.
10) Lipids. Fatty acids, triglycerides and phospholipids; beta oxidation.
11) Biosynthesis of fatty acids and triglycerides; Cholesterol and steroid hormones. Lipoprotein metabolism.
12) The general metabolism of amino acids and nitrogen compounds. Transamination, oxidative deamination, ammonium ion and urea cycle.
13) Nucleic acids. Nitrogen bases and nucleotides and their metabolism.
14) Metabolic interactions: blood glucose control, post-prandial phase and fasting, biochemical aspects of diabetes. Vitamins, iron metabolism, transfer of monocarbon units.
General biology:
Mendelism
DNA function
DNA structure
DNA duplication:
Duplication. semiconservative
Replicative gallows
RNA
Transcription
Translation
Protein synthesis
Genetic code
Bacterial recombination
Chromosomes
Mitosis
Meiosis
Mutations
Examples of mutations
Notions of molecular biology.
Chemistry and Biochemistry:
The exam program topics are all covered during the lessons, and the related contents are available on the e-learning pages of the course.
It is therefore not necessary to use a particular textbook, each student can choose whether to consult one (the one he prefers) if it helps him, or not, if he risks losing himself.
Among those available I suggest:
M. Samaja, R. Paroni - Chimica e Biochimica per le lauree triennali dell’area biomedica – Piccin editore
Champe PC, Harvey RA, Ferrier DR – Le basi della biochimica – Zanichelli (wider and more articulated).
General biology:
Tiepolo Laudani, Le Basi Biologiche Dell’ereditarietà, ed La Gogliardica Pavese
All the material presented in class and what is necessary for the preparation of the exam (slides, lecture notes, exercises, online lessons) is available on the University's e-learning platform
Pharmacology:
Farmacologia generale e clinica. Katzung B.G. Piccin Ed X edizione italiana sulla XIII edizione di lingua inglese
Farmacologia. Rang, Dale, Ritter, Flower, Henderson. Elsevier Ed. VIII edizione italiana
Presentations projected in class: downloadable from e-learning
Reported articles: downloadable from e-learning.
Chemistry and Biochemistry:
the course takes place through lectures, usually of 2 hours each, which cover the entire exam program.
Exercises, handouts and on-line discussions of the course topics are also available through the e-learning platform.
General biology:
The teaching is organized in frontal lessons. The teacher uses the projection of slides, with charts, images, and diagrams to make the content of the lessons more comprehensible.
Pharmacology:
Frontal lessons.
Classroom activities include the projection of ppt files set with images and schemes. During the lesson, examples of drug use and current events relating to the various topics will be presented and students will be invited to interact with questions and curiosities.
The teachers are available for appointments, insights and clarifications by writing to the respective email addresses:
Chemistry and Biochemistry, marco.trinchera@uninsubria.it
General biology, giovanni.porta@uninsubria.it
Pharmacology, cristina.giaroni@uninsubria.it