BIOC*2580: Introduction to biochemistry

Welcome to BIOC*2580: Introduction to Biochemistry! This textbook is an adaptation of the course notes for the BIOC*2580 course that have been used and revised in the Introduction to Biochemistry course at the University of Guelph for many years.  Those course notes form the core material for the course that can be supplemented by a physical textbook, something we have also done for years. However, we’ve found that the majority of students in BIOC*2580 focus on the course notes and the materials presented in the classroom. So we decided to produce this textbook that is specific to the Introduction to Biochemistry course. While this textbook is based on the BIOC*2580 course at the University of Guelph, its content and flow of ideas are common and adaptable to any introduction to biochemistry course at the post-secondary level.

Acknowledgements

This textbook is the result of years of contributions from multiple people. The main founding authors are Professor Robert Keates and Professor P. David Josephy at the University of Guelph who set the original curriculum and the original course notes used for this textbook. Dr. Keates authored the first half of the notes, while Dr. Josephy wrote the second half based on his descriptions of the material; you will hear his “voice” and more personal descriptions in the sections starting with Lipids. More recently, the material in this textbook have undergone updates and revisions. I am thankful to Dr. Enoka Wijekoon who has been instrumental in updating the second half of the course. I also want to thank Ali Versluis, UofG’s Open Education Resources Librarian, who provided advice about open access materials.

For this textbook we strove to update figures and reduce the amount of material from other textbooks. You’ll see that we used an open textbook available through the NCBI website by Stryer, and that we include a small number of figures from the Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry text that we have traditionally used in the course. I am very thankful to two students who created new figures, edited the text, and proofed the textbook. The bulk of new figures were created by Pei-Yi Su using software that allows the figures to be included in an open education resource, and editing and proofing was primarily done by Yen Phuong Hoang. Both students were supported by funding from the College of Biological Science Office of Educational Scholarship and Practice (COESP) and the Ontario Work Study Program. I am very grateful to both of these funding sources.

About the Author

Professor John F. Dawson received a double-major BSc (Hons) in Biology and Chemistry from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. His graduate training was in the area of protein biochemistry with an emphasis on protein phosphorylation and protein phosphatases in particular. His post-doctoral research in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University focused on the interactions between actin and myosin producing force in muscle; an area of research that he continues to pursue. In 2016, he became the founding Director of the College of Biological Science Office of Educational Scholarship and Practice, and in 2021 he was honoured as a 3M National Teaching Fellow, recognizing his contributions to and leadership in higher education in Canada.

COVER

The interaction between acidic residues on actin (white) and basic residues on myosin (blue) taken from PDB 6C1D and visualized using PyMOL.

Customization

BIOC*2580: Introduction to Biochemistry is Copyrighted with all rights reserved. That means this book is not to be shared, copied or adapted.

Errata

If you have corrections or suggestions regarding content, please e-mail the author: jdawso01@uoguelph.ca. Any corrections will be documented in the version history in the back matter of this text.