Reading List

Preparing for the MSc Biochemistry programme.

At this time of year it is common for new students to start thinking about the course they will begin in September and how they might prepare themselves. At the postgraduate level, we teach a little from text books but are more likely to recommend scientific research articles. Many of these will be online and most of will be freely available once you have a University login.

Here are a few concepts that we would hope you are fully familiar with before you start the course, as that will allow you to make full use of the new information we are presenting to you:

• The different ways of representing chemical structures: you should be able to draw and recognise the common functional groups in chemical structures (e.g. amides, phosphates, alcohols).
• The names, the single- and three-letter codes, and the chemical structure of the 20 common amino acids; you should understand how a protein sequence folds into secondary structures and then subsequently folds into domains which might associate into multi-domain proteins.
• The names, single-letter codes and chemical structure of the bases that comprise DNA and RNA, and the common structures that DNA forms.
• The core structures and nomenclature of simple sugars and lipids.
• There are also many common molecules that occur in biological systems (e.g. ATP, glutathione, NADH) and the ability to recognise their structures is also useful.
• The general properties of enzymes and the different units reported for enzyme activity.
• pH, acid/base equilibria (pK_a and pK_b), and the isoelectric point (pI) of a molecule
• the units of quantity and concentration (mole versus molar, mg/ml, % v/v, etc.).

A revision of these concepts will increase your ability to take on new material we will present. 

We suggest using a general biochemistry text book; there are many to choose from and they can be very expensive however, if you are going to buy one, we advise that it is better to invest in a new edition rather than a second-hand version. Many of the general textbooks are available for searching and viewing online at National Library of Medicine.

Here are a few examples of textbooks that cover the core concepts of biochemistry; all of these are available in the university library here in Edinburgh and some may be accessible online.

• Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, D.L.Nelson and M.M. Cox. W.H. Freeman.
• Molecular Biology of the Cell, B. Alberts, et al. Garland Science.
• Biochemistry, J.M.Berg et al. W.H. Freeman.
• Principles of Physical Biochemistry, K.E. van Holde, et al. Pearson/Prentice Hall.