Objectives. The course provides students with a working knowledge of fundamental chemical and chemical-physical principles governing procariotic and eucariotic biological functions, from the processes of transcription and translation of genetic information to cellular metabolism.
The course is devoted to mastering: the structural organization of eucariotic and procariotic cells, with emphasis on the basic principles governing the processes of DNA duplication and transcription and protein synthesis; the structure and function of proteins, with haemoglobin, myoglobin and enzymes as models of proteins in action; the metabolism of carbohydrates, with emphasis on the reciprocal regulation of their anabolic and catabolic pathways in response to cellular energy requirement, as an example of metabolic integration.