Medical Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology II

Finally, after seemingly endless amounts of memorisation of different types of carbs, lipids, neucliotides, proteins and their derivitives in the second semester, you will actually use them for something uselful. During this semester you will learn all about the the major parts of human metabolism, again, in infuriating detail. This time though, you will start to learn things that you should take with you to your clinical years.

How to pass
This semester is simply memory, memory memory...

Get a map of metabalism and highlight the important pathways based on the lecture slides.

Alternatively, go to the lectures and draw your own as the semester goes on.

For every subject learn: If you do not have time to study everything then skip the dedicated seminars such as genetic medicine, they are at most one or two questions but you will need to memeorise a lot for these.
 * Pathways
 * Anabolic
 * Catabolic
 * ​Enzymes
 * Substrates
 * Products
 * Co-factors
 * Regulation
 * Allosteric
 * Covalent modification
 * Diseases
 * Treatment

Creating a presentation is an easy way of getting 4 bonus points.

Writing your lab reports during the semester but handing them in at the end is the best way of getting the 3 bonus points, most teachers will not read all the reports at the end of the semester so will give full marks no matter how crap they are.

The midterms are essential to pass so make sure you dedicate enough time to these, even at the expense of Physio.

The last few weeks of lectures do not have slides and are included on the semi final, asking people for notes on these lectures if you did not go is not a good idea, so don't miss these.

Top tips: (just in terms of the required material)
 * Glucogon always phosphorylates
 * Insulin always dephosphorylates
 * Synthase requires no energy (e.g. ATP/GTP)
 * Synthetase requires energy (e.g. ATP/GTP)
 * Kinase requires ATP
 * Phosphatase breaks of at least one Pi
 * Dehydrogenase requires NAD/NADP
 * Transanimase needs PHP
 * Carboxylase needs biotin
 * Dehydrogenase complexes almost always need TPP
 * Hydroxylases require biopterin
 * SAM is used in choline, creatine and epinephrine synthesis

The exams
2 midterms: 1 Lab test:
 * Carbohydrates
 * 3 parts:
 * 2 x open test questions
 * 30 multiple choice questions:
 * Lipids/Aminoacids
 * 3 parts:
 * 2 x open test questions
 * 30 multiple choice questions
 * 15 min essay on any of the preformed labs in the year

Semi Final:
 * 2 parts:
 * Open test questions
 * 60 multiple choice questions:
 * Both must be passed with more than 50%

The difficulties
The amount to memorise is massive.

Try to remeber all the useless parts of reactions like H2O, CO2 etc...

Questions can be asked from any slide of the lecture presentations.

Usually, if you see something on the slides that you think will not be asked on the test because it is a minor point, it will be asked.

There will be questions that have not been mentioned anywhere in the lectures.

The practical lessons are generally pointless and are just examples of the theory, they can be missed but not more than 3

Conclusion
Easier than the 2nd semester and more useful but it usually is the least priority of the semester's big subjects. This is why many people fail, it is not hard but time needs to be taken to memorise eveything.