ogres, onions and cakes: the biochemistry saga.

           Do you remember, way back in Biology 141 or 142 or whenever the biology started to look a little bit more like chemistry, how your teacher made you learn the krebs cycle and glycolysis?
Oh sure, then it was like murdering small pieces of your soul to learn something that you felt you would never need again. There were things like ATP production and a myriad of floating, seemingly unrelated NAD+ molecules.
           Fast forward 5 years (or 4 years, if you were a music major and came into the department a bit late) and shit just got real.  I'm quaking in my coach slippers (well, I wish I had boots) anticipating the krebs cycle that is about to begin with a vengeance. The thing is, I know I learned glycolysis and the krebs cycle. I can picture my undergrad teacher drawing the whole damn thing out on the board. But then graduate level biochem starts and you learn one general thing about undergrad-
Your teachers lied to you.

Mostly lies of omission.

          But that three step introduction to the cycle that glycolysis was made out to be is a chain of intermediates and enzymes so complex that it's regulated by two different enzymes and a bunch of small molecules. There's still glucose and pyruvate in it, but now glucose is transformed into glucose-6-phosphate, to fructose-6-phosphate, to fructose-1,6-phosphate, to both dihydroxyacetone phosphate and glyceraldehyde -3-phosphate, to 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate,  to 3-phosphoglycerate, to 2-phosphoglycerate, to phosphoenolpyruvate, and ending with pyruvate. Each with its own enzyme, naturally.
         And now I'm learning that pyruvate can really go to a whole bunch of different pathways, not just to glycolysis, and that your body produces its weight in ATP each day.


        I'm thinking that oversimplification may be the next deadliest thing to indecision. The false overconfidence, wilting class by class as you realize again that you don't know jack, feels a little bit like betrayal.

        Here's the craziest thing about it- my undergrad teachers were Amazing. (lies and all.) I'm constantly rechecking my notes from 1,2, and 3 years ago to clarify what my teachers are saying now, and I'm honestly a little appalled at both the stories of teachers my classmates had and some of the teachers I have now.

        I wish I could go back to those classes and point out which physics equations are indispensable , which hours here and there to learn with eagle-like scrutiny, to videotape the cardiac cycle lecture so I could put it on youtube and watch it over and over and over again.

        My take home message today has three parts:
                 one- Thank you, amazing teachers who laid down that foundation with integration for different learning styles.
                 two- pay attention in class. You never know what you're going to curse not learning the first time around.
                three- learning is like ogres and onions and cakes....there's always another layer, even when you think you *really* understand something.