Library Item
Proteins are human after all
Description:
I have always had trouble keeping my biology, physics and chemistry straight. I was in one of these classes, when I was in seventh grade !! After seventh grade, I took a liking to mathematics and never looked back ! At that time, in India (and even now), biology was combined with chemistry and if you do not want one subject then you do not get the other. I had no dislike for biology but what kept me from attending these classes were the dissections we had to do in the lab. I could not imagine cutting up the poor creatures after having been brought up in an orthodox Hindu family as a strict vegetarian.
Little did I know that these subjects would come back to haunt me when I started my PhD in Bioinformatics. To my surprise, I found that the concepts and the knowledge base behind these subjects were amazingly interesting. They intrigued me even more when I realized they are the basis of LIFE itself. No more fear of dissections either, since I only have to deal with the data available on the internet. For over three years I managed to convince myself I really do not need to know ALL the details. So, why master them ? But, recently I realized that I have to understand the basics of these subjects to do meaningful research (really had to know something if I am going to make head or tail of the papers I read !!). So, I devised a simple method to understand the things I read, in order to remember them a bit longer. I also thought I would share it with other students in the same situation as me, in the hope it would help them to understand the concepts. I tried my thoughts out in the Google group email list which goes out to the bioinformatics students in RSG-India and got some good feedback.
If you are a non-biology person and would like to know more about the nature of chemical bonds you can read all about it at:
proteins-are-human-after-all
