With the implementation of the new MCAT in 2015, biochemistry has received additional attention from undergraduate students pursuing careers in healthcare. This has resulted in increasing enrollments and a corresponding need to better connect the abstract concepts in biochemistry to pre-health students’ interests. To engage these students, five to ten minute examples from medicine have been incorporated into each lecture of a two-semester biochemistry course. From the importance of pKas to the understanding of aspirin overdose, to the role of serine proteases in chronic pulmonary hypertension, to regulation of the commitment step of glycolysis in cancer, these examples show the real-world relevance of the material in class. In this presentation, several examples from class will be discussed, along with an analysis of related assessment data.

Increasing student engagement through the use of medical examples in an upper-division biochemistry course

2019 Spring National Meeting

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