Science B47: The Molecules of Life

Instructor: Jon Clardy and Stuart Schreiber

Semester: Fall 2007

Blogger: Jim T

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Science B47: The Molecules of Life

This blog was inspired by Science B47: The Molecules of Life by Jon Clardy and Stuart Schreiber

L1: 9/18/07

September 23rd, 2007

Hey, Here’s a blog about "Molecules of Life," a Science B core whose professors had the highest CUE guide ratings out of all the Science B’s. That’s why I chose the course. I’m a senior now, and in my experience, tremendous professors can enliven any material, but exciting material never...

L2: 9/20/07

September 24th, 2007

Language of Chemistry Hello again, time for more Molecules! Did you know: Everything is made up of atoms...Let's get to the lecture. This lecture's title derives from 1959 Nobel Prize in Medicine winner Arthur Kornberg. Here's what he said: "Much of life can be understood in rational terms...

L3: 09/25/07

September 26th, 2007

Small Molecules: Molecular Shape and Complementarity Hey readers, Intro... Time for lecture 3. So last lecture focused on how atoms connect to each other, bonding to each other in a certain way that defines the molecule that they make up. Today's lecture looks at a molecule's 3-D shape. When...

L4: 09/27/07

September 27th, 2007

Genes and Genomes: How it began Hey there, Lecture 4 time... We spent the last 2 lectures looking at small molecules: their structures, and the bonds that hold them together. We talked about how they relate to each other, and to macromolecules (Binding!) like proteins. Today we step up...

L5: 10/02/07

October 2nd, 2007

Genes and Genomes: How it works today Hey, Last lecture we learned the history of genes and genomes, and today we see how it works in contemporary times. Last Lecture Transition to This One... Last week we learned that small molecules like testosterone bind to their nuclear hormone receptors...

L6: 10/06/07

October 8th, 2007

Small molecule control in biology: steroids and sexual development Hey, So the last 4 lectures introduced the main players in this class: small molecules, and genes. Gaining our Footing The next two lectures integrate small molecules and genes, looking at their roles in the biological...

L7: 10/09/07

October 11th, 2007

Small molecule control in biology: steroids, breast cancer, and behavior Hey, so last week's 2nd lecture post was dry, so I'll try to spruce up this one and all the rest. Getting Started This lecture is going to be great. Last lecture looked at how steroids determine the development of...

L8: 10/11/07

October 15th, 2007

Thyroid hormone, amino acids and mirror images Sounds DENSE and boring. I know. But let's see what we can do with it... Our next 4 lectures will deal with naturally occurring small molecule signaling agents. Like hormones. All of these small molecule signaling agents that we'll talk about...

L9: 10/16/07

October 18th, 2007

Hey, so so far, we've looked at sex steroids and thyroid hormones. We've talked about how information is relayed through small molecules from particular gland to the rest of your body. Here's how that works: a molecular signal gets sent from the hypothalamus (below) to the pituitary gland...

L10: 10/18/07

October 19th, 2007

Hey, Today's lecture continued the theme of hormone signaling. We looked at a new class of signaling agents. The members of this new class of signaling agents that we talked about are adrenaline and noradrenaline. Because a US pharmaceutical company trademarked the name "adrenaline," we call...

L11: 10/23/07

October 26th, 2007

Serotonin (Actually. The title is "Serotonin and SSRIs," but SSRIs make the Title of the Lecture sounds worse) Hey there, after a tremendous run-through with my section TF today, I'm feeling a little more comfortable with all this material, and perhaps it'll rub off in my run-through of today's...

L12: 10/25/07

November 8th, 2007

Marijuana... So we’ve talked about neurotransmitters, and we continue this theme of small molecule messengers (neurotransmitters) today. Previous lectures looked at naturally occurring messengers that were biosynthesized in our bodies. Today we look at where we’d find naturally occurring small...

L13: 10/30/07

November 13th, 2007

Opioids and Endorphins This is the last lecture of Part 2/4 in the course: Hormones, neurotransmitters, and mind-altering molecules. Next section, we'll talk about more systematic ways of discovering small molecules, and more systematic ways of discovering genes. And we'll see why it's so important...

November 21st, 2007

Variation in Our Genomes Provides Clues to Human Disease Hey, here's lecture 1 of the 2nd half of the course. It's Lecture 1/6 of Part 3/4 of the course. Part 1/3 of Today's Lecture: Basic Characteristics of the Human Genome: Simple and Young! (Sorry if all of these fractions are making...

November 22nd, 2007

Variation in gene expression provides clues to diagnosis and treatment of disease Hey there, so this is lecture 2/5 of Part 3/4 of the course. Whereas last lecture was titled "Variation in our genomes provides clues to human disease," today's lecture is about variation in gene expression and its...

November 23rd, 2007

Hey again, time for lecture 16. More Schreiber! We've talked about natural differences in DNA and RNA in the last 2 lectures, and now we'll look at small molecules and how they can switch cells from a diseased state to a healthy state. Today, we won't talk about small molecules as medicines,...

November 24th, 2007

Hey, So, we started in B-47 by looking at naturally occurring small molecules. We saw small molecules functioning as drugs, and then in our last lecture we talked about using small molecules as probes that tell us how the body and diseases work. Today, professor Schreiber will talk us through...

December 1st, 2007

Hey there, we've come to our last lecture in part 3/4 of the entire course. We said last lecture was about building the haystack. It was about finding that huge pool of molecules that might fit whatever particular need we might have, like halting cell division in cancer cells. Today is about finding...

L19 - 11/27/07 - Sexy, Sexy Pheromones

December 2nd, 2007

Hey, so this is the first lecture in the last of four parts in the entire class. As professor Schreiber has been telling us, part 4 will apply genomic medicine to human health, today and in the future. Professor Clardy (who's teaching today) has told me it will be a little dense, but it should...

December 9th, 2007

Hey, diabetes is viewed as two types of diseases (types 1 & 2) that have little in common. (Sweets, like those in this bakery, have long played a major role in Indian culture. A national sweet tooth, an increasingly Westernized diet of fried and processed foods, and a genetic susceptibility...

December 11th, 2007

Last lecture we talked about diabetes. The next two lectures are a pair that concern cancer. Today we'll talk about the molecular origins of cancer. (When Magic Johnson, 48, discovered he had HIV in 1991, it was widely believed he wouldn't survive 2-3 years. Largely thanks to modern medicine,...

L22 - 12/06/07 - Cancer Stem Cells

December 12th, 2007

Hey, 3 lectures to go before the teaching in B-47 concludes. (Tom Green's testicular cancer has not relapsed after 5 years, which is the normal time frame doctors use to determine if a cancer has been completely cured or not. To use the cancer lingo in this lecture, it suggests that his...

December 15th, 2007

Hey there. 2 more lectures to go. (Consideration of the degree to which Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox have been humbled by Parkinson's disease is a profoundly moving exercise, one that sheds light on just how random, fast, and powerful the striking of disease can be on us as humans.) Today's...

L24 - 12/13/07 - Aging

December 15th, 2007

The last lecture of the course, and the last of part 4/4 of the entire course, which was entitled "Small molecules in our future." --> Today's lecture has 4 parts (2 really. you'll see). The first two parts look at an experiment that says aging is regulated, and not inevitable. The...

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