Gene expression is a difficult topic for students to learn and comprehend, at least partially because it involves various biochemical structures and processes occurring at the microscopic level. Designer Bacteria, a design-based learning (DBL) unit for high-school students, applies principles of DBL to the teaching of gene expression. Throughout…

The purpose of this study was to characterize cortisol response and regulation associated with shame responding in early childhood and to examine how general the relation between shame and cortisol is. It was predicted that children responding to task failure with shame would show a larger and more prolonged cortisol response than other children.…

The concurrent improvement in average grades earned by college graduates would seem to indicate better quality students, although some observers attribute that to grade inflation. From the author's perspective derived from almost four decades of teaching at one institution, students are intellectually as good as ever; however, the author sees a…

Both upper- and lower-level chemistry students struggle with understanding the concept of buffers and with solving corresponding buffer problems. While it might be reasonable to expect general chemistry students to struggle with this abstract concept, it is surprising that upper-level students in analytical chemistry and biochemistry continue to…

In this study, the application and evaluation of a novel didactic tool (buffer kit) is described to make it easy for students in the biological area to overcome their conceptual deficiencies that render the learning of the buffering mechanism difficult. The buffer kit was constructed with double-face EVA cards with a conjugated acid formula…

Objective: The authors examined whether alcohol-related negative consequences decreased among students exposed to an intervention. Participants: Beginning in 1999, approximately 2,500 randomly selected undergraduates from a 4-year US university annually participated in a Web-based survey over 6 years. Methods: The educational intervention used…

Context: The obesity epidemic threatens the present and future health of adolescents in the United States. Yet, health care providers lack specific training for pediatric obesity assessment and management. Purpose: This study examined the adherence of rural Georgia primary care practitioners to an overweight adolescent management protocol. The…

Background: Little is known about the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor profile for older adults with intellectual disability (ID). As many CVD risk factors are treatable by lifestyle changes, confirmation of the risk factor profile for older adults with ID could substantially impact upon preventive health practices for this group. Method:…

Cytochrome P450 enzymes are a family of heme-containing proteins located throughout the body with roles in metabolism of endogenous and exogenous compounds. Among exogenous compounds, clinically relevant pharmaceutical agents are nearly all metabolized by P450 enzymes. However, the activity of the different cytochrome P450 enzymes varies among…

Detection of biologically active compounds is one of the most important topics in molecular biology and biochemistry. One of the most promising detection methods is based on the application of surface plasmon resonance for label-free detection of biologically active compounds. This method allows one to monitor binding events in real time without…

Students of biochemistry and related biosciences are urged to solve problems where kinetic parameters are calculated from initial rates obtained at different substrate concentrations. Troubles begin when they go to the laboratory to perform kinetic experiments and realize that usual laboratory instruments do not measure initial rates but only…

The oxygen dissociation curve (ODC) of hemoglobin (Hb) has been widely studied and mathematically described for nearly a century. Numerous mathematical models have been designed to predict with ever-increasing accuracy the behavior of oxygen transport by Hb in differing conditions of pH, carbon dioxide, temperature, Hb levels, and…

Three decades of research into the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental disorders failed to pan out. The biological causes of most mental disorders remain unknown. However, it is now well understood that psychiatric drugs work by perturbing neurotransmitter systems, and that the brain, in response to this blocking of normal function, undergoes a…

Because learned associations are quickly renewed following extinction, the extinction process must include processes other than unlearning. However, reinforcement learning models, such as the temporal difference reinforcement learning (TDRL) model, treat extinction as an unlearning of associated value and are thus unable to capture renewal. TDRL…

The formation of many forms of long-term memory requires several molecular mechanisms including regulation of gene expression. The mechanisms directing transcription require not only activation of individual transcription factors but also recruitment of transcriptional coactivators. CBP and p300 are transcriptional coactivators that interact with…