[PDF] To all students holding offers for Biochemistry Welcome Letter

30017_7Biochemistry_2022.pdf

To all students holding offers for

Biochemistry

Welcome Letter

August 2022

Dear Student,

First of all, welcome to Oxford! This letter outlines some recommended reading resources to help you

prepare over the summer for your upcoming start in Biochemistry. You will have received a letter from the Biochemistry department with the Math and Chemistry resources that you will be able to work on before arriving in Oxford. The Pre-course Maths Booklet is particularly important and will help you prepare for the Maths and Statistics course you will

take in your 1st year. I´m also including here a recommended reading list that includes several useful but also inspiring

reads that you can delve into over the summer. This list can also be found on the Biochemistry department website. Note that these are not mandatory, and you can pick and choose depending on your interests. https://www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/recommended-reading-list

We look forward to seeing you in October!

Yours,

Prof Lars Jansen, Tutor in Biochemistry.

Recommended Reading

Finding out about biochemistry:

The following are popular science books and give a good place to start for anyone who wants to find out

something about biochemistry, or just wants some fun background reading. ard Dawkins. - - for download free from the Biochemical Society (link below).

There are also web resources available at the Association for Science Education (ASE) web site (link

below). From school to university biochemistry - transitional textbooks: These provide a gentle introduction to studying biochemistry at a university level.

University Press.

Scion.

Useful books to prepare for the start of the Oxford biochemistry course: These are very highly recommended for students who are daunted by the maths and organic chemistry components of the course to look at in advance, but would be useful for everyone. First year text books for the Oxford biochemistry course:

There are no set course texts (and you will probably want to try books out from libraries before deciding

what, if anything, to buy) but the following are some of the more popular recommended texts. ) J.M. Berg, J.L. Tymoczko and L. Stryer, pub. W.H. Freeman. pub. W.H. Freeman. nd.

Prentice Hall.

Ratcliffe and M.R. Wormald, pub. Oxford University Press. ... and on the lighter side:

The Biochemist's Songbook (MP3 files).

Zheng Lab - Bad Project.

External Websites with Related Information:

Understanding Biochemistry

ASE - biochemistry resources

South Parks Road

Oxford OX1 3QU

www.bioch.ox.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)1865 613200

Fax: +44 (0)1865 613201

Tel: (01865) 275738 e-mail: mark.wormald@bioch.ox.ac.uk

From: Dr. Mark Wormald

Associate Director of Teaching, Department of Biochemistry

10th July 2022

To all students holding offers or places for

Biochemistry starting in October 2022

Dear Student,

Pre-course Maths Resources

All undergraduates on the Biochemistry course do a Quantitative Biochemistry course in their 1st year, comprising lectures and departmentally organised problems classes. To help students prepare for these we have produced a set of Maths resources for you to work through before arriving in Oxford. The lectures and problems classes will assume that you are familiar with all of this material. The Maths resources can be accessed in both PDF and online formats in this Canvas course: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/168041 The home page has instructions on how to log in to Canvas (which is the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that you will use throughout your degree). If you have any problems accessing Canvas, then please e-mail msdlt@medsci.ox.ac.uk. We strongly recommend that you work through these resources and brush up any areas about which you are not confident before you arrive in October. If you find any of the above material you arrive in Oxford.

Chemistry pre-reading

If you would like to start reading about some of the chemistry that is relevant to the 1st year course, then we would recommend that you have a look at the following review article: Essays in Biochemistry (2017) 61, 401-427 Essential chemistry for biochemists which you can find at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5869253/pdf/ebc-61 -ebc20160094.pdf. You will cover most of this material in lectures, classes and tutorials during the 1st year and so

there is no assumption that you will be familiar with or understand all this at the start of the course,

particularly in the way that it is described in the article. However, if there are large areas of the

chemistry discussed that you have not seen before in any form during your school chemistry Tel: (01865) 275738 e-mail: mark.wormald@bioch.ox.ac.uk career (especially in these pandemic times) then again please let your College tutor know once you have arrived in Oxford. We are not expecting students to have spent a long time over the summer working on these places have been confirmed. We are sending these to you now so that you have the opportunity to have a look and then to talk to teachers at your school if you want before the start of the summer holiday. Please let me know if you have any queries and we very much look forward to seeing you in

October.

Yours,

Dr Mark Wormald