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2010; Wiley; Volume: 38; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/bmb.20407

1539-3429

Graham R. Parslow,

Health Sciences Research and Education

Wiley Publishers provide this site to catalog textbooks for teaching in the wide area of chemistry that includes biochemistry. Wiley (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ) have trademarked the title OnlineBooksTM for this service offering access to over 2,000 latest publications. The site allows browsing, reading, or searching for a term across thousands of chapters. Tables of content and chapter summaries may be viewed online free of charge. Sample chapter downloads are free for lecturers or they can be purchased using a credit card. An alerting service can send an email when a new chapter or journal article is published that meets a defined interest. The URL given here is for the Australian site that provides prices in the local currency and it is easy to choose another country from an extensive list under the change location link at the top of the page. Unfortunately, I could not link to the US site at the time of review. The site can be used to check for latest editions and I confirmed that the latest edition of Fundamentals of Biochemistry: Life at the Molecular Level by Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet, Charlotte W. Pratt, remains the 3rd edition of December 2007. However, I also found that a student companion to the Voet et al. book (that I was unaware of) was released in 2008. More gratifyingly I found that the 7th edition 2010 of the venerable Textbook of Biochemistry with Clinical Correlations, edited by Thomas Devlin had just been released. I was considering recommending the Devlin book for our revised medical course so I immediately placed a request for an evaluation copy using the regional contact us. A Wiley representative replied almost immediately and she was most cooperative. A group of teachers at the University of Brasilia (Brazil) have published a series of articles on their assessment of different approaches to teaching biochemistry to medical students. One article titled Pizza and Pasta Help Students Learn Metabolism shows better performance (blood glucose related) when students were fed pizza. The publications from this group include an article in 2006 on student seminars printed in this journal [1]. Their recent interest has turned to peer-enhanced learning, an approach that my own medical faculty is keen to adopt. This web site provides the abstract of an article The Use of Multiple Tools for Teaching Medical Biochemistry published in the journal Advances in Physiology Education. The whole article is only available for subscribers, but most university libraries will have an electronic subscription. The abstract relates that “In this work, we describe the use of several strategies employing the philosophies of active learning and problem-based learning that may be used to improve the teaching of metabolic biochemistry to medical and nutritional undergraduate students. The main activities are as follows: 1) a seminar/poster system in a mini-congress format (using topics of applied biochemistry); 2) a true/false applied biochemistry examination (written by peer tutors); 3) a 9-hour examination on metabolism (based in real publications); 4) the Advanced Biochemistry course (directed to peer tutors, where students learn how to read and criticize real medical articles); 5) experiments about nutrition and metabolism, using students as volunteers, and about free radicals (real science for students); 6) the BioBio blog (taking advantage of the “web age,” this enhances out of class exchanges of information between the professor, students, and peer tutors); 7) student lectures on public health issues and metabolic disorders directed to the community and lay people; and 8) the BioBio quiz show. The main objective of these activities is to provide students with a more practical and interesting approach to biochemistry, such as the application of theoretical knowledge to real situations (diseases, experiments, media information, and scientific discoveries). In addition, we emphasize the importance of peer tutor activities for optimized learning of both students and peer tutors, the importance of a closer interaction between students and teaching staff, and the necessity to initiate students precociously in two broad fields of medical activity: “real” basic science and contact with the public (also helping students—future doctors and nutritionists—to be able to communicate with lay people). Most activities were evaluated by the students through written questionnaires and informal conversations, along various semesters, indicating good acceptance and approval of these methods. Good student scores in the biochemistry examinations and seminars indicated that these activities are also working as valid educational tools.” MutDB allows entry of a disease, gene or single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) to display changes to a protein structure relative to wild type. This is intended for researchers and is not a site for casual browsing because registration is required as well as downloading the analytic tools. There is a convenient alphabetic listing to show the catalogued contents. MutDB.org was originally developed at Stanford University by Sean Mooney and subsequently developed by Jessica Dantzer and colleagues at the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Indiana University. The SNP and mutation data in MutDB is taken from the Swiss-Prot and dbSNP databases. For each gene containing SNPs and mutations, associated protein structures have been found. A BLAST search is performed against the PDB for both the wild type and mutant amino acid strains. Exact matches within the protein sequence are located using pattern matching and pairwise alignments. The conservation tracks on each SNP-to-gene map are created from data in the UCSC Human Genome database. Conservation scores for each nucleotide position, organized by chromosome are averaged over every 20 positions. The averages are used to create a graph that provides a visual guide to variations. The US National Human Genome Research Institute was established in 1989 as part of the Human Genome Project. The education page has the following linked sections: 1) All About The Human Genome Project Online Education Kit, 2) Understanding the Human Genome Project, 3) National DNA Day 2010, 4) Talking Glossary, 5) Genetic terms and illustrations, 6) Genetic Education Modules for Teachers, 7) Fact Sheets on DNA, cloning, genomics, and more, 8) Webinar Series, and 9) Schedule an NHGRI speaker. In February 2010, they added a new online tool to help educators teach genetics and genomics to paramedical workers (linked to www.g-2-c-2.org). This is intended to address the growing need among healthcare professionals for knowledge relating to individualized approaches to detect, treat, and prevent disease. Educators can use the Genetics-Genomics Competency Center to download materials for use in classrooms (after registration). They can additionally share their genomic and genetic teaching resources and materials with other educators. Uploaded material is regularly reviewed by the center's editorial board to ensure quality offerings. In the years 1761–1776, J. G. Kölreuter carried out crosses between various species of Nicotiana and found that the hybrids were intermediate between their parents in appearance. The hybrids from reciprocal crosses were indistinguishable. He concluded that each parent contributes equally to the characteristics of the offspring. It required Mendel and Morgan's work much later to reveal that this was not the final word on inheritance. You can read all about it in Genetics in Context, the target of the URL given above. A dual timeline is provided by decade from 1760 describing scientific events, especially those relevant to classical genetics, presented against those of general historical and cultural interest. For example, Darwin published Origin of Species the year before Lincoln was elected President, while Mendel published his findings the year after Lincoln was assassinated. The ESP in the URL refers to Electronic Scholarly Publishing and working back to the home page gives links to more resources dedicated to the history of science, genetics, computational biology, and genome research. Although the home page is dated 2003 the material is current, as you will discover under new publications. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute UK is Europe's largest genome centre. The educational resources, produced by a dedicated media team of the Institute, include videos featuring eminent researchers, animations, classroom activities and reliable information about genetics and genomics. The target users are both the general public and students looking for advanced material. At a general level there are answers to “What is a genome?”, “How do you sequence the DNA of an organism?”, and “What could this information be used for?”. I took particular interest in the section on pharmacogenetics because I was a patient at one time who exhibited a severe adverse reaction to 5-fluorouracil. That life-threatening experience could have been avoided if my genotype was known. I discovered that the word “pharmaceutical” derives from the Greek “pharmakon,” which means “medicine” or “toxin.” Although these meanings seem contradictory, medicines and toxins are similar because they interfere with body chemistry. A number of medicines have been developed from toxins, such as the heart drug digoxin. All medicines have side-effects, but they are used because their benefits outweigh their harmful effects. Unfortunately, some people will suffer, perhaps even die, because of their medication. Adverse drug reactions are surprisingly common. A UK study carried out of nearly 20,000 admissions to hospital in Merseyside in 2004 found that 1,225 (6.5%) were due to adverse drug reactions. They accounted for 4% of hospital bed capacity and the annual cost to the National Health Service UK of adverse events was estimated to be £466 million. This suggests that, at any one time, the equivalent of up to seven 800-bed hospitals is occupied by patients with adverse reactions in the UK. Scientific Commons is a project of the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and aspires to provide the most comprehensive links to scientific knowledge on the internet. Scientific Commons has indexed more than 34 million scientific publications and extracted millions of author names. Ideally this project would give a single entry point to scientific publications. Researchers can also enter their own profile. Unlike PubMed for academics it is intended to be a medium for the public. Scientific Commons aspires to make authors' social and professional relationships visible. Intrigued by this I searched for my own name as an author and found only one article (a relatively obscure conference workshop) in the Scientific Commons. The link to that article worked fine and took me to the original site of storage. The steps to arrive at the article involved an intermediate screen in a utility called CiteSeer that allows for the creation of a reference list. Documents are additionally stored at Scientific Commons to provide a download independent of the original source. This could prove useful when an article is lost through link rot. Scientific Commons also supports Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds customized by discipline or keywords. Despite being aimed at the general public the site is not easy to use with only a single search box on the home page and no guidance to refine searches and use onsite utilities. In 2000, Leroy Hood co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington State. Hood is President of the Institute and continues to make contributions to medicine and computational biology. He has helped to establish many biotechnology companies including Amgen, Applied Biosystems and Systemix. His innovations in DNA sequencing continue to contribute to knowledge of the human genome. While most institutes are dedicated to a discipline area, systems biology is the study of biological systems as a whole. The Institute states that “Instead of analyzing individual components of a system—genes or proteins—systems biology analyzes an entire system such as the immune response by tracking connections between genes, proteins, and a system's behavior. Systems Biology will have a profound effect on the practice of medicine, making it possible not just to react to a disease that is already present but also to predict and even prevent its onset.” In keeping with this holistic focus Hood and colleagues have sequenced the full genome of two patients with genetic diseases, a change from sequencing healthy subjects. The Institute also takes a variant approach to fostering education pointing out that other institutions have an education or outreach component, but they typically serve as a means for showcasing the research of the organization. Such efforts contribute to the understanding of science, but do not constitute science education reform. The Institute aims to support science education as a whole across grade levels and content areas. “A growing number of jobs require interdisciplinary collaboration, which in turn requires a workforce with an integrated knowledge of science and skill in applying knowledge to real world problems. The underlying consequence of this transformation is that if the US is to remain competitive internationally, future generations must know more science.” It is one thing to recognize a problem, another thing to do something about it. In the1990s, Hood received two National Science Foundation grants to support inquiry-centered science training for elementary and middle school teachers. Teachers were trained in how to teach using interactive materials and they in-turn trained their colleagues. At the conclusion of these grants, the program serviced more than 14,500 teachers, and 34,000 students. These programs showed that inquiry science (materials and instruction) promoted student achievement in science. To find out more select the Featured Projects and Course Catalog. The photomicrograph competition began in 1974 and has become a forum for showcasing the beauty and complexity of life seen through light microscopes. A good photomicrograph is an object of beauty that can achieve the elevation of spirit generated by other forms of great art. This website is a gallery of the prize winning submissions over many years. As the premier competition in the world the photomicrographs are all impressive and many are stunning in their impact. Some would be appropriate for teaching and many would make good wall-paper for a computer screen. Any type of light microscopy technique is acceptable, including phase contrast, polarized light, fluorescence, interference contrast, darkfield, confocal, deconvolution, and mixed techniques. An independent panel of experts evaluates entries on the basis of originality, informational content, technical proficiency and visual impact. The photo galleries are organized by year and feature the best twenty of each year. The photomicrograph shown here, as Fig. 1, is a personal choice that won in 1994. See the download section at the site to obtain high resolution images to save as wall-paper or screensavers. Cross-section of very young beech (40×) by Jean Rüegger-Deschenaux, Mikroskopische Gesellschaft Zurich, Switzerland. From www.nikonsmallworld.com.