BIOL462-26S2 (C) Semester Two 2026

Medical Biochemistry

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 13 July 2026
End Date: Sunday, 8 November 2026
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 26 July 2026
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 27 September 2026

Description

The primary goal of this course is to assist student development as scholars and advance their knowledge and literature research skills in the field of Medical Biochemistry. This course will exam broad topics of medical interest where biochemical techniques have been used to examine the basis of human pathological process. The course will examine topic areas of medical research using recent peer reviewed publications. The course focuses on the critical evaluation of the research literature and evulation of competing theories on the mechanism of selected disease pathologies.

This course will study in detail selected aspects of medical biochemistry. Participants are encouraged to develop their public speaking and debating skills during the course. Many of the seminars will be run in the style of a laboratory “journal club” with an emphasis on coffee/tea drinking.

Recommended preparatory course(s): BCHM306 or BIOL351 or BIOL463.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding and evaluation of experimental design, methodology and data in the field of medical biochemistry. (assessment tasks: internal assessment)
• A sense of how researchers use biochemical techniques to contribute to advancement in the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. (assessment tasks: internal assessment)
• A sense of the importance and limitations of scientific and technical questions in addressing the broader issues of social concern. (assessment task: test)
• The ability to access and critically assess the scientific literature based on biochemical techniques. (assessment task: internal assessment & test)
• Developing and trialing your own “teaching to learn” techniques. (task: seminar)

Transferable Skills, Graduate Attributes and Kaupapa
• Ability to find relevant literature using online databases and develop visual display presentations of the publication. (EIE 4)
• Ability to summarise complex ideas and description of research into key ideas and concepts (EIE 3.).
• Ability to critically assess competing hypothesis and publication. (EIE 3)
• Ability to manage team work. Most jobs require interactions with others to accomplish a task to a particular standard and on time. (EIE 1)
• Greater competence in evaluation and design of techniques relevant to medical biochemistry (EIE 3.)
• Engage in science and technology issues with a broader understanding of their social context (BICC 1, GA1, GA2)

Restrictions

BIOL436/BCHM40

Co-requisites

Timetable 2026

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Tutorial A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 09:00 - 10:00 Beatrice Tinsley 112
13 Jul - 19 Jul
Tutorial B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 09:00 - 11:00 Beatrice Tinsley 112
20 Jul - 26 Jul
3 Aug - 9 Aug
17 Aug - 23 Aug
7 Sep - 13 Sep
21 Sep - 27 Sep
5 Oct - 11 Oct

Timetable Note

Seminar Time and Place

The seminars are one to two hours long. Check Timetable for location.

Reading list of papers
You are expected to find on the web and down load pdf of the papers listed for each seminars reading. These papers will be discussed in depth at the seminars.

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Steven Gieseg

Lecturer

Vanessa Morris

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Final Exam 60%
Lesson plan 20%
Written summaries 20%


Aromatawai | Assessment

The final grade will be made up by the following;

20% Written Summaries
For each seminar session, each student will write a one page summary of the research paper they have studied which will be handed in on the day of the seminar to the lecturer unless a medical certificate is provided. These will copied and placed on Learn for the rest of the class to aid as study notes. They will then be marked and returned.

20% Lesson Plan
Each student will develop their own lesson plan and seminar around a chosen topic in medical science. They will submit this topic summary, papers and review as well as give a short presentation on the subject (see details below).

60% Final examination in the fourth term
This is a 2.5 hour exam consisting of an either/or question from A/Prof Gieseg and an either/or question from Dr Morris.
To pass a questions well, the examiners are looking for candidates to have written approximately 4 to 5 pages of factual information and discussion excluding diagrams.

Lesson Plan Assignment
Students will submit a lesson plan for a topic they have selected. The document is made up off
• 2 page introduction to topic.
• 5 papers plus a review paper on a topic
• 500 word description on the relevance of the selected papers
• Set 5 to 8 questions from the papers plus give 5-10 line answers
• 5 minute Oral presentation with 5-6 slides introducing the topic.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,286.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see School of Biological Sciences .

All BIOL462 Occurrences

  • BIOL462-26S2 (C) Semester Two 2026