Falcon Biochem

It just occurred to me that I hadn't written anything about the biochem section yet. We're now going into the third or four biochem days (5 if you count medical genetics). So far, I really like this guy, and that seems to be the general consensus. He goes at a good pace, is almost always exactly on time for breaks, lunch, and ending the day, and makes it very clear what is and is not important. Today we covered glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, and glycogen synthesis/degredation, in the afternoon. I definitely picked up a couple things from him that made it MUCH easier to understand everything, that I don't know how I never knew before.

For example, I just learned today that insulin dephosphorylates, while glucagon phosphorylates. In the past, I always tried to memorize every enzyme, and whether phosphorylating activates or deactivates the enzyme. Now, I finally learned that it's MUCH easier than that....if it's involved in glucose metabolism, phosphorylating it will deactivate it, and if it's involved in glucose synthesis, phosphorylating will activate. That could have saved me so much time and stress two years ago in MCB!

Also, I'm not sure if it's the Falcon study method, or just the fact that we're only half way through, but I"m finally remembering diseases that I could never remember before, such as the various lysosomal storage diseases or glycogen storage diseases. I just hope I can retain everything I've learned, because if I do, I should be good to go on the step.