OVERVIEW

This teaching Course concerns the study of the human metabolism from a biochemical point of view. It also focuses on the modifications of the biochemical processes induced by a given nutrient supply. Students will learn how small changes in specific biochemical processes can have significant effects on the body as a whole.

AIMS AND CONTENT

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The aim of the Course is to provide the student simple basics on the main metabolic pathways so that he will be able to anticipate and understand the biological consequences arising from the intake of specific classes of nutrients. The student will learn to distinguish between activated and inhibited metabolic pathways under fast and fed conditions, or in resting and stress situations. He will acquire the ability to define how such metabolic pathways are reciprocally regulated in different tissues (liver, muscle, heart, brain…..).

TEACHING METHODS

Teacher-led lessons repeatedly recall the relationships/feedbacks (activating or inhibitory) of a given metabolic pathway with the related other pathways also in different tissues. This approach seems cumbersome, especially at the beginning, but successively the students get used to consider metabolic pathways as processes finely regulated and integrated with each other in a dynamic situation responding roughly to fast and fed or resting and stress conditions.

To improve the student's sequential learning, the prompt application of the notions just exposed is combined with metabolic graphs that are updated during the Course. The goal is to facilitate learning and passing the oral examination.

Lessons, depending on the rules given by the University,  will be held either in presence or online. In this second case,  the lessons will be synchronous and recorded.

Any Student with documented Specific Learning Disorders (SLD), or with any special needs, shall reach out to the Lecturer(s) and to the dedicated SLD Representative in the Department before class begins, in order to liase and arrange the specific teaching methods and ensure proper achievement of the learning aims and outcomes.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

High energy molecules. Enzyme kinetics, and Michaelis-Menten equation. Hemoglobin and myoglobin. Aerobic and anaerobic glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, tricarboxylic cycle, electron transport chain, oxidative phosphorylation, pentose phosphate pathway (brief), glycogen synthesis and degradation, fatty acids synthesis and degradation, ketone bodies, urea cycle. Mitochondrial shuttles. Glucose transporters. Insulin, glucagon, epinephrine signaling cascade pathways. Integrated control of the metabolic pathways at both the cellular and tissue level (liver, muscle, brain).

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Le basi della Biochimica” di Denise R. Ferrier ed. Zanichelli (2nd italian edition, translated from the 6th American edition)

The students attending this course can also refer to the files of the lessons published on Aulaweb.

If the lessons will be provided online, then the attending students will have the possibility of download the recorded lessons.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Oral exam.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The oral examination has a duration of  20-30 minutes and consists generally  of two/three questions.