Requirement: need to have completed basic biochemistry and biophysics, comfortable with chemistry, quantitation and calculations

Course outline: Biochemical curiosities is an advanced course in biochemistry, where interesting, broad ideas in biochemistry will be discussed. Topics for this year\'s course include the importance of oxygen, oxidative and reductive processes in biology, life before oxygen, the origin of the mitochondria, understanding bioenergetics, beyond ATP, and reactions in biology driven by concentrations of molecules. The course will start in mid Feb, after the biochemistry and biophysics course is completed. The course will have a mid term and final assessment. No audits will be allowed, and students must sign up for full course credit.

Course outcome: by the end of the course, students will be expected to understand and discuss how fundamental concepts in biochemistry are central to life. They should be able to bridge chemical concepts to how these directly control cellular and molecular processes, appreciate biological concepts based on these building block molecules.