Concepts in Bioscience Engineering

Richard F. Dods considers himself an integrative scientist. The integration began in graduate school where he integrated biology and chemistry to receive a doctoral degree in biochemistry. For his master's degree from New York University he studied the reaction of nitrous acid and nucleotides. This experience blended inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and biological chemistry. His doctoral degree from the University of Connecticut and his post-doctoral experience at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research added experience in synthetic organic chemistry of nucleosides and research in plasma membrane isolation from cancer cells[1], two rather widely different fields. He studied and conducted research as a Research Associate at Michael Reese Medical Center, Chicago and as a Director of Clinical Chemistry at Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago (a position that included an Adjunct Assistant Professorship at the University of Illinois Medical Center, Chicago). He authored two audiocassette courses for the American Chemical Society entitled "Clinical Chemistry" and "Pathophysiology for Chemistry". He authored the diabetes chapter for four editions of the textbook "Clinical Chemistry: theory, analysis, and correlation", edited by Lawrence Kaplan and Amadeo J. Pesce. He authored a textbook called "Understanding Diabetes: A biochemical perspective", published by Wiley. In this book as in the chapter he wrote for Kaplan and Pesce he integrated history, physiology, medical diagnosis, computer analysis, instrumentation, pathophysiology, and medical treatment. He taught integrative science, biochemistry and organic chemistry for seventeen years at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) a world-renowned secondary school funded by the Board of Higher Education of the State of Illinois. While at IMSA he published several papers on integrative learning and taught a course entitled Integrative Science which had topics similar to those covered in Bioscience Engineering.[2],[3],[4] As he prepared to teach the Integrated Science course, he recognized that each discipline covered had its own vocabulary. Alan Alda once wrote in Science[5] "Scientists urgently need to speak with clarity to funders, policy-makers, students, the general public, and even other scientists...clarity in communicating science is at the very heart of science itself". In agreement Dr. Dods wrote Concepts in Bioscience Engineering with verbiage used by scientists in their various disciplines that is understandable and presented in clear English. In other words the language used in each of the disciplines in Bioscience Engineering to describe concepts, theories, and applications to real-world problems has been translated in this textbook into common easy to understand English. More about scientific communication is presented in the Preface. -- [1] Dods RF, Essner E, Barclay M. (1972) Isolation and characterization of plasma membranes from an L-asparaginase-sensitive strain of leukemia cells.BBRC:46:1074: doi:10.1016/S0006-291X(72)800884. [2] Dods RF (1996) A Problem-based learning design for teaching biochemistry. JChemEd:73:225:10.1021/ed073p225. [3] Dods RF (1996) Insights into problem-based learning: As applied to understanding a scientific discipline. NCSSSMSTJournal:2:11. [4] Dods RF (1997) An action research study of the effectiveness of problem-based learning in promoting the acquisition and retention of knowledge. JEdGifted: 20:423: doi:10.1177/016235329702000406. [5] Alda A (2012) The flame challenge. Science:335:1019: doi: 10.1126/science.1220619.

Preface.- Primary Structure.- Secondary Structure.- Tertiary Structure.- Quaternary Structure.- Post-Translational Changes.- Proteopathies.- Unusual Proteins.- Techniques Used to Study Protein Folding.- Software for Protein Folding.- Bioengineering.- Postscript.