Making biochemistry matter

From hormones in milk to antimicrobials in soap, biochemistry is a part of everyone’s lives. Paul Siliciano, associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, aims to make it part of pretty much everyone’s education as well. One of this year’s Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education winners and a previous recipient of CBS’s Stanley Dagley-Samuel Kirkwood Undergraduate Education Award, Siliciano takes great pride in making biochemistry accessible—and interesting—to a wide range of college students.

“They do better when they can see a relevance to themselves and something they can use,” he says.

Among Siliciano’s teaching trademarks is his practice of planting lighthearted slides among the formulas and molecular models in his lecture PowerPoints. One, a photo of Hans Krebs with Elton John glasses, inspired a struggling student several years ago to draw and donate to Siliciano a posterboard representation of the Krebs cycle in Elton-John-glasses shape. The poster still hangs on Siliciano’s office wall.

To bring biochemistry to life, Siliciano developed and teaches two undergraduate classes known for their user friendliness.

The first, Human Health and Disease, is designed for freshmen who’d like to test the waters of a biochemistry career. Ordinarily, Siliciano says, prospective biochemistry majors don’t get a chance to take classes in the discipline until after they’ve completed organic chemistry classes, often their junior year.

“That’s too bad. We really want to be talking to those students and keeping them excited,” he says. With this minimal-prerequisite class, now in its second year, he aims to do just that.

The second course, an honors seminar, focuses on food and drug safety. By exploring topics in the news such as food poisoning or the pros and cons of a glass of wine with dinner, students learn not only about the science of biochemistry, but also about its relevance in their lives.

“The great thing about this field is that pretty much every day in the paper you can find something about biochemistry,” Siliciano says. “That makes all the difference.”

Over the two decades he’s been teaching, Siliciano has seen many changes. Students today, he says, come from much more academically diverse backgrounds than in years past. They also are more likely to be working long hours that cut into study time. At the same time, the information explosion in biology has made it hard to cover the basics. “To master modern biology, a student has to learn a lot more than 20 years ago,” he says. “Everything seems rushed.”

One of Siliciano’s favorite things is to see students warm up to biochemistry. The biochemistry basics course he teaches for non-majors is on the schedule of many who end up in health professions.

“Most students approach it with a certain amount of dread,” Siliciano says. “The fun part is seeing them come around to the knowledge. They slowly realize that it’s cool, then they start to enjoy it.”

—Mary Hoff