While BIOC 450 was mostly content-focused, this course was generally thinking-focused. We would prepare for each class period by reading a primary research article plus usually a couple corollary papers, and then the classes would be composed of simply discussing these. We would start by going over comprehension, talking over any unusual assays or data, and then we would discuss the biochemical principles the papers presented and questions that were raised by its findings. I appreciated Professor Weiner's ability to find the cool details of biochemical functions that are not normally covered in other biology courses. From the true, complex nature of the transcription complex to the wide variety of chaperone proteins to the real necessity of RNA in ribosomes, I felt like my knowledge of cell biology was vastly deepened in this single course.
Our final project for the course was designing our own set of experiments to follow up an existing publication. My proposed research focused on characterizing activation of immune cells in response to caloric restriction.