The main topic of this course is "the chemistry of life". Organisms have evolved and adapted to the environment where they live and harvest nutrients to survive, grow and replicate. The processes enabling the organisms to do this is thoroughly regulated. We will start with structure and properties of important biomolecules as water, proteins, carbohydrates, fat and DNA. Then we will use the acquired knowledge to understand important processes as energy conversion and biological synthesis within cells.

In the weekly lectures we will cover central parts of the curriculum. The learning objectives are described in detail in a document which is distributes when the course start. This document is a guide for the student when the read the text book. There are also weekly colloquiums where the students work with assigned problems. The topics are coordinated with KJB210/KJB201.

The overall objective in this course is to provide the students with an understanding of central biological processes within the cell and how these are influenced by their surroundings. After finishing the course, the students should be able to explain

• how proteins are built up and how they may appear in three dimensions.
• what enzymes are and how they catalyze chemical reactions.
• structural and chemical properties of carbohydrates and fat and how these molecules are transformed within the cell.
• the structures and properties of DNA and RNA building blocks and how these are polymerized into nucleic acids.
• how information is stored and extracted from DNA.
• how the cell produces "chemical energy" to drive internal processes.
• how plants harvest light and convert this energy to "chemical energy".
• how biological membranes are constructed and how molecules are transported across membranes.
• how biological processes in the cell are regulated.