Overview of BMB

The Lectures

Lectures aretimetabledin the Sanger Building Lecture Theatre on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 10.00am

• Click on the link 'Online Timetables' to view the full BMB timetable

Our general policy for the handouts is that they should reflect the structure of the lectures, and make compact statements about key features: tricky points may get additional explanation. The handouts may contain copies of significant items displayed during lectures: they are not a literal script of the lectures, and don't include extended commentary or background reference information. Colour versions of the lecture handout, along with lecture slides, are available on Moodle.

Lecturers will also provide some questions related to the material that they have presented, which you and your supervisors may wish to discuss.

To get most out of the lectures and make your learning an active process, we recommend that you take your own notes irrespective of the nature of any particular handout. This will also help with later consolidation and as you prepare for the examinations. 

BMB Practicals

BMB practicals are scheduled every weekday, so provide an excellent opportunity to work in a relatively small group (maximum 30 students each day) . The practical sessions provide the perfect environment to ask questions and discuss your experimental results. You will be given comprehensive notes for each practical, which are found in the BMB course handbook and on Moodle.

Journal Clubs

These small group sessions comprise structured exercises to help introduce you to reading primary scientific literature. There are two Journal Clubs, one on a molecular topic and the other more cell biological. You will be given a published paper, with some guidance notes and questions, to analyse before the interactive session, in which you critically evaluate its merits in a small group directed by one of the Biochemistry staff. 

Experimental Design

Experimental design will be discussed throughout the course and to consolidate this aspect of teaching in biochemistry, there will be teaching sessions on this aspect in both terms.

Student feedback and representation

We take student comments very seriously in course development.

We shall seek your views about the course by means of questionnaires and consultative meetings with your representatives each term. The BMB course is revised each year in light of student comments.  Questionnaire analyses and minutes of the consultative meetings are publicised on the course Moodle site.