The Folch method is a commonly employed, simple biochemical procedure used to extract fat from food items and biological samples in biochemistry laboratories. The iodine number of fat reflects its degree of unsaturation. In the present study, the iodine number of fat extracted using the Folch method from cow milk, goat milk, chicken egg yolk and…

The function of proteins is governed by their three-dimensional structure. This structure is determined by the chemical characteristics and atomic interactions of amino acids. Students of biochemistry, with a particular focus on protein chemistry, benefit from looking at protein structures and understanding how proteins are built and fold. Due to…

CRISPR-Cas9 technology is an established, powerful tool for genome editing through the ability to target specific DNA sequences of interest for introduction of desired genetic modifications. CRISPR-Cas9 is utilized for a variety of purposes, ranging from a research molecular biology tool to treatment for human diseases. Due to its prominence…

Understanding ATP formation is essential for learning metabolism and is central to grasping metabolic processes as a whole. However, due to the high level of abstraction, the number of intermediate substrates, the connections, and integrated regulation, its comprehension often poses a challenge. This and the fact that traditional teaching methods…

This study tested competing theories about the effectiveness of different instructional sequences for learners with different levels of prior knowledge. Across two classroom experiments, undergraduates learned about noncovalent interactions in biochemistry by either receiving explicit instruction before problem-solving (I-PS group) or engaging in…

The COVID-19 pandemic affected a large range of in-person education activities in Colombia. This created great limitations in academic performance for students with reduced access to communication technologies and deepened the educational gaps in the country. This was particularly true for sciences such as biochemistry. In Colombia, molecular…

In a typical undergraduate biochemistry course, two main educational objectives include (1) understanding and applying how genetic mutations can influence protein structure and function, and (2) examining metabolic pathways of biomolecules to study cellular storage and fuel. Many times, these topics can seem disparate to students; therefore, we…

Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) can help students visualise and explore complex chemical concepts, such as protein enzyme structures and interactions. We designed a set of collaborative iVR-based learning tasks on the interaction between a protein enzyme and its substrate. We investigated how 18 pairs (36 students) in undergraduate chemistry…

DockIT is an interactive molecular docking tool suitable for teaching students about concepts related to drug-receptor interaction. Its most unique feature is the ability to model both local and global conformational change in the receptor based on information derived from the trajectory of a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The workshop…

Isoenzymes are variant forms of the same enzyme activity that exhibits different tissue distribution. When cells are damaged, intracellular content leaks into the blood stream, making them potential biochemical markers. Undergraduate health sciences students are expected to interpret laboratory findings of serum levels of biochemical markers and…

Biochemistry and molecular biology students are asked to understand and analyze the structures of small molecules and complex three-dimensional (3D) macromolecules. However, most tools to help students learn molecular visualization skills are limited to two-dimensional (2D) images on screens and in textbooks. The virtual reality (VR) App Nanome,…