American Society For Biochemistry And Molecular Biology Research Articles

Science Communication Training Imparts Confidence and Influences Public Engagement Activity.

The impacts of science are felt across all socio-ecological levels, ranging from the individual to societal. In order to adapt or respond to scientific discoveries, novel technologies, or biomedical or environmental challenges, a fundamental understanding of science is necessary. However, antiscientific rhetoric, mistrust in science, and the dissemination of misinformation hinder the promotion of science as a necessary and beneficial component of our world. Scientists can promote scientific literacy by establishing dialogues with nonexperts, but they may find a lack of formal training as a barrier to public engagement. To address this, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) launched the Art of Science Communication course in 2015 in order to provide scientists at all career stages with introductory science communication training. In 2020, we conducted a retrospective survey of former participants to evaluate how the course had impacted participants' science communication behaviors and their confidence engaging with nonexperts, as well as other benefits to their professional development. We found that scientists were significantly more likely to communicate with nonexpert audiences following the course compared to before (77% versus 51%; P < 0.0001). In addition, quantitative and qualitative data suggested that scientists were more confident in their ability to communicate science after completing the course (median of 8, standard deviation [SD] of 0.98 versus median of 5, SD of 1.57; P < 0.0001). Qualitative responses from participants supported quantitative findings. This suggested that the Art of Science Communication course is highly effective at improving the confidence of scientists to engage with the public and other nonexpert audiences regardless of career status. These data-driven perspectives provide a rationale for the implementation of broadly accessible science communication training programs that promote public engagement with science.

Off the deep end: What can deep learning do for the gene expression field?

After a COVID-related hiatus, the fifth biennial symposium on Evolution and Core Processes in Gene Regulation met at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City, Missouri July 21 to 24, 2022. This symposium, sponsored by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), featured experts in gene regulation and evolutionary biology. Topic areas covered enhancer evolution, the cis-regulatory code, and regulatory variation, with an overall focus on bringing the power of deep learning (DL) to decipher DNA sequence information. DL is a machine learning method that uses neural networks to learn complex rules that make predictions about diverse types of data. When DL models are trained to predict genomic data from DNA sequence information, their high prediction accuracy allows the identification of impactful genetic variants within and across species. In addition, the learned sequence rules can be extracted from the model and provide important clues about the mechanistic underpinnings of the cis-regulatory code.

Moving biochemistry and molecular biology courses online in times of disruption

When the COVID‐19 pandemic necessitated a rapid pivot to online instruction, a team of faculty teaching biochemistry and molecular biology courses created a resource to help other educators approach online education. The group, comprised of educators with experience teaching hybrid and fully online courses, described their strategies in areas like course design, promoting engagement, and assessing student performance. Each topic has a dedicated webpage with brief recommendations, along with a curated list of links to relevant reading, videos, and resources. The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) supported the project by hosting the resource on their website (https://www.asbmb.org/education/online‐teaching). At this time, I was transitioning into a position focused on curriculum redesign; one key goal was to introduce discussion sections into a biochemistry course for majors. Drawing from the team’s ideas to promote online engagement, I designed many of these activities using a collaborative whiteboard tool. These activities have now been successfully implemented both online and in‐person, and offer flexibility to instructors and students as we continue to develop engaging activities for hybrid and blended courses.

Development of a Certification Exam to Assess Undergraduate Students' Proficiency in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Core Concepts.

With support from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), a community of biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) scientist-educators has developed and administered an assessment instrument designed to evaluate student competence across four core concept and skill areas fundamental to BMB. The four areas encompass energy and metabolism; information storage and transfer; macromolecular structure, function, and assembly; and skills including analytical and quantitative reasoning. First offered in 2014, the exam has now been administered to nearly 4000 students in ASBMB-accredited programs at more than 70 colleges and universities. Here, we describe the development and continued maturation of the exam program, including the organic role of faculty volunteers as drivers and stewards of all facets: content and format selection, question development, and scoring.

Community‐supported Development of an Annual Exam Assessing Undergraduate Competencies in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Each year, volunteers from the biochemistry and molecular (BMB) community come together to construct and score the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Certification Exam, a tool provided to ASBMB-accredited programs for assessing key competencies in the discipline. Grounded in a community consensus about core BMB concept and skill areas, the annual exam is designed to evaluate undergraduate students’ competence in the areas of energy and metabolism; information storage and transfer; macromolecular structure, function, and assembly; and skills including analytical and quantitative reasoning. First offered in 2014, this assessment tool is now representative of a relatively mature exam development process. The one-hour exam consists of 12 questions, with a mix of multiple-select/multiple-choice and constructed-response formats, balanced across the four concept and skill areas and addressing both lower- and higher-order cognitive processing levels. Each constructed response is scored by a team of at least three BMB scientist-educators, and inter-rater reliability is calculated to ensure consistency. All questions are piloted and revised before they contribute to students’ exam scores. To date, nearly 5,000 students from over 70 colleges and universities have taken the ASBMB exam. Of these, an average of approximately 42% of students per year have scored sufficiently well to earn “Certification” of their exam performance by ASBMB; approximately 13% of students have earned “Certification with Distinction”. Upwards of 120 scientist-educators – with professional affiliations ranging from small, primarily undergraduate institutions to large research universities – have contributed to question development and/or scoring. Many volunteers have participated over multiple years; for example, 97% of the 2020 scorers plan to score again in 2021. Future directions include building the community of volunteers, expanding the question bank, delivering the exam online (in spring of 2021), and investigating the potential of the ASBMB Certification Exam to inform programmatic assessment.

John W. Suttie (1934–2020)

John W. Suttie (1934–2020)

Voices on Diversity: Combating Racial Inequality to Increase Diversity

As part of our commitment to amplifying the voices of underrepresented scientists, we are publishing the insights and experiences of a panel of underrepresented scientists in a series of questions and answers. Here, they discuss ways that the scientific community can combat racial inequality and increase diversity. These are the personal opinions of the authors and may not reflect the views of their institutions.

Trump bans some Chinese students from US

US President Donald J. Trump signed an order late last month canceling visas and barring entry for Chinese students, postdocs, and other visiting scientists associated with China’s “military-civil fusion strategy.” The order, which went into effect June 1, is an effort to stop what the Trump administration sees as a Chinese attempt to acquire US technology. Some Chinese students “operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property,” the order says. The ban applies to F visas, typically used by graduate students, and J visas, usually issued to postdocs and visitors. Undergrads associated with the Chinese program are still allowed to enter the US. At least 3,000 students could be affected by the move, according to an estimate from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). “Officials have acknowledged there is no direct evidence that has pointed to wrongdoing by Chinese visa-holding students,” Benjamin Corb, ASBMB’s public affairs director, says

Assessing stakeholder perceptions of the american society for biochemistry and molecular biology accreditation program for baccalaureate degrees

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) began an accreditation program in 2013. The criteria for accreditation of undergraduate programs include sufficient infrastructure - number and expertise of faculty, physical space and equipment, support for faculty and students - and incorporation of core concepts in the curriculum - structure and function of biomolecules; information storage; energy transfer; and quantitative skills. Students in accredited programs are able to have their degrees ASBMB certified by taking an exam focused on knowledge or skills across the four core concept areas. Members of the accreditation committees administered a survey to key stakeholders in the BMB community: undergraduate programs, both those that have applied for accreditation and those that have not; alumni/ae of accredited programs; graduate and professional programs; and employers. The goals of the study were to gauge the success of the program and determine necessary areas of improvement. The results indicate that the major benefits of applying for accreditation are the impetus to gather data and analysis not generally collected, and access to assessment data via the exam. However, stakeholders outside of the undergraduate community showed little awareness of the accreditation program. Additionally, the application process itself was seen to be very time consuming. This feedback will be used to improve the process and engage in further outreach. © 2018 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 46(5):464-471, 2018.

Scientific Community Outreach: Promoting Science to Students at the K‐12 Level and STEM Students in ASBMB UPR‐RP

ObjectivesThe American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Student Chapter at the University of Puerto Rico‐Rio Piedras Campus (UPR‐RP) is devoted on promoting science in communities inside and outside of our university. The primary goals of the chapter are: 1) to increase the interest in science of students in the K‐12 level and 2) to provide STEM students in the University with the tools and guidance to improve their academic and professional development.MethodsTo do this we offer outreach activities to students at the K‐ 12 level. These activities are comprised of experiments related to different fields of science such as biology, chemistry, physics, biotechnology and environmental science. The idea is to illustrate scientific concepts in an easy, and hands‐on way. Therefore, students can better understand these concepts, making biochemistry and molecular biology accessible to all. Aside of the outreach activities offered in schools, we also collaborate with other associations, such as the American Chemistry Society (ACS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in local activities at the ACS Chemistry Festival and AAAS Annual Meeting, respectively. Members of the ASBMB student chapter are also encouraged to participate in all outreach events so they can develop their oral presentation skills. For students in STEM fields, we offer a variety of workshops and seminars including: how to make personal statements and curriculum vitae, how to seek out research opportunities and internship opportunities, graduate and professional school panels, as well as journal clubs.Conclusion/Future DirectionThe collection of the activities and experiences that we offer to students in K‐12 level, STEM students and ASBMB members result in a successful promotion of science community at a variety of levels. Our hope is to develop an interest in science in students at the K‐12 level who are involved in our outreach activities and to facilitate the professional development of college students (both STEM students and ASBMB members).Support or Funding InformationASBMB Regional Meeting AwardThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

The Art of Science Communication-A Novel Approach to Science Communication Training.

Effective communication is a requisite skill for scientists. However, formalized training in this area is often unavailable for members of the scientific community. As one approach to combat this problem, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) developed The Art of Science Communication, an eight-week-long online course that provides facilitated instruction on how to communicate science in an oral format. The course is offered three times a year, and as of December 2017, nearly 200 individuals from all career stages have taken part in it. The course completion rate is currently 60%, a rate three to five times as high as the average for similar Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Participants have indicated that taking the course has improved their ability to communicate about their research, and that the skills and lessons learned have benefited them professionally. Moving forward, we are examining approaches that will help us improve the course and expand its reach throughout the scientific community. This article details the development of the course and examines the role and potential of such training within the larger scientific community.

A national comparison of learning objectives and outcome assessment of the biochemistry and molecular biology capstone experience: building the ASBMB Concept Inventory (618.13)

Recognizing the increasingly integrative nature of the molecular life sciences, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) recommends that Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) programs develop curriculum based on concepts, content, topics and expected student outcomes, rather than courses. Several reports, including Vision and Change, endorse this “big idea” approach to undergraduate life science education. ASBMB recently developed an accreditation program to provide a national outcome‐based mechanism to accredit B.S and B.A. degrees and acknowledge undergraduate BMB programs which fulfill the expectations of the ASBMB recommended curriculum. Currently, ASBMB is a building a BMB Concept Inventory which will contain validated assessment tools based on foundational and discipline specific knowledge and essential skills for the molecular life science undergraduate. The capstone experience is an essential part of molecule life science undergraduate programs. Although capstone experiences are commonly defined as an attempt to measure student ability to synthesize and integrate acquired knowledge, the format, implementation, learning goals and approach to outcome assessment are quite varied across the nation. Here we report a national comparison of capstone experiences and align the results with both the ASBMB recommended BMB curriculum and the findings of the national workshops driving the development of the BMB Concept Inventory.Grant Funding Source: NSF‐ 0957205 RCN‐UBE

‘Kicking the can’: science, Congress and a Ponzi scheme

AIDS researcher Yuntao Wu, Professor of microbiology and infectious diseases at George Mason University (Manassas, VA USA), is finding imaginative ways to maintain his cell lines, not to mention his life's work on developing therapeutics against HIV infection. As his funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has dried up, Wu has become dependent on the kindness of strangers and friends to cover the US$3,000 a month he needs to keep his lab running. To help repay a US$35,000 loan from his university, he has so far raised more than US$21,000 on CrowdRise, a crowd‐sourced fundraising website. In previous years, Wu had little trouble funding his research the ‘usual’ way. He received more than US$1 million in grant money from NIH over the past 4 years, and his lab published 18 papers in that period. But his application to renew the grant for another 5 years was rejected this past spring. Wu blames the tight NIH budget. Desperate for funds, he is now applying to other sections of the US National Institute for Allergy and Infection Diseases to see whether they will be more forthcoming than the molecular biology section that did not renew his grant. He expects to hear this month whether he will receive any NIH money, as the 16‐day government shutdown in October last year delayed the grant review process. Wu's grant applications are not the only ones to be affected by the shutdown: The closure of the government temporarily delayed the assessment of 300,000 extramural research groups for funding. Another 14,000 NIH scientists—designated as ‘non‐essential’ federal employees—were sent home, virtually closing some laboratories. Though the obvious effects of the shutdown were temporary, there are concerns about the longer‐term consequences of the unstable funding environment. In an 11th hour deal, leaders from the conservative‐dominated House of Representatives …

An interview with David Sabatini

David Sabatini is a Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Senior Associate Member at The Broad Institute Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. David and his laboratory at the Whitehead Institute study the basic mechanisms that regulate cell growth, the process whereby cells and organisms accumulate mass and increase in size. These pathways are often deranged in human diseases, such as diabetes and cancer. A major focus of the laboratory is on a cellular system called the target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway, a major regulator of growth in many eukaryotic species. Work in David’s laboratory has led to the identification of many components of the pathway and to an understanding of their cellular and organismal functions. David is also interested in the role of metabolism in cancer and in the mechanisms that control the effects of dietary restriction on tumorigenesis. In addition to the work on growth control and cancer, David’s laboratory has developed and is using new technologies that facilitate the analysis of gene function in mammalian cells. The laboratory developed ‘cell-based microarrays’ that allow one to examine the cellular effects of perturbing the activity of thousands of genes in parallel. David is a founding member of The RNAi Consortium (TRC) of laboratories in the Boston area that is developing and using genome-scale RNA interference (RNAi) libraries targeting human and mouse genes. David received his BS from Brown University magna cum laude and his MD/PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1997. He completed his thesis work in the laboratory of Dr Solomon H. Snyder in the Department of Neuroscience. Later in the same year, David was appointed a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. This was followed in 2002 by a dual appointment as a Member at the Whitehead Institute and Assistant Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. David has received numerous distinctions, including being named a W.M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar, a Pew Scholar, a TR100 Innovator, a recipient of the 2009 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, The 2012 Earl and Thressa Stadtman Scholar Award from The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), and most recently the 2013 Feodor Lynen Award from Nature. Did you always want to be a scientist? No, not really. Despite my father being a cell biologist and my mother a pathologist, I did not decide on science as a career until I was in college at Brown and I worked in Al Dahlberg’s laboratory on ribosomal RNA in bacteria. It was there that I fell in love with the laboratory atmosphere and the feeling of freedom of just following my curiosity. Earlier I had wanted to be an architect (although I showed no particular skill and my parents told me I would end up designing bathrooms for condos).

Dynamic Visualization of Signaling Activities in Living CellsA presentation from the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) at Experimental Biology 2008, San Diego, CA, 6 to 9 April 2008.

The complexity and specificity of many forms of signal transduction are widely suspected to require spatial microcompartmentation and dynamic modulation of the activities of protein kinases, phosphatases, and second messengers. However, traditional methodologies for detecting signaling events, such as activation of kinases and second-messenger production and degradation, are limited in their spatiotemporal resolution and do not allow one to follow these events within the live-cell context. To achieve dynamic tracking of signaling activities in living cells, we have engineered genetically encoded fluorescent reporters for protein kinases and second messengers, such as cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and phosphoinositides. Their development and specific examples of their application are discussed. In addition, a live-cell, high-throughput screening method has been developed for identification of new modulators that affect the dynamic activity of kinases and second messengers. Together, these reporters have the potential to provide important spatiotemporal information about the circuitry governing specific signaling events in living cells.

PABMB: From 1994 to present

My interest in PABMB resulted from my having three postdoctoral students who came to my laboratory from Argentina in the late 1980s and from enjoying very much the VII PAABS meeting (Pan American Association of Biochemical Societies) in Ixtapa, Mexico, the fall of 1992. It was a beautiful resort area and the meeting was of a very high quality having many eminent speakers not only from the Americas, North, Central and South, but also from Europe and Asia. That was the meeting when the PAABS Council decided to change their name to PABMB, the Pan American Association for Biochemistry andMolecular Biology. At that time I was a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Education Committee and we had a subcommittee that dealt with Latin American educational affairs. Leopoldo de Meis from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil would sometimes attend the ASBMB meeting and we had some occasion to discuss with him what he was doing with respect to training of undergraduate as well as graduate students in Brazil. In 1993 I received a call from him asking me if I would be interested in being the Secretary General of PABMB, effective, 1 January 1994. There was hesitation on my part as I was not really interested in taking up another administrative job. But Leopoldo was insistent and I agreed. At that time the PABMB Chairman was Marino MartinezCarrion who was Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri Kansas City. The others on the Executive Committee were Vice Chairman, Manuel Krauskopf from Chile, Treasurer, Armando Parodi from Argentina and Immediate Past Chairman, Antonio Pena from Mexico. PABMB consists of Societies of Biochemistry and/or Molecular Biology and equivalent organizations in the Americas (including the Caribbean), designated as Constituent Societies. Similar organizations outside the geographic area of the Americas, but culturally related are designated as Adherent Societies. The Council and the Executive Committee conduct the business affairs of PABMB. The Council is composed of one delegate from the Constituent and Adherent Societies of PABMB. The Constituent Societies at that time were the biochemical societies from, Argentina, Brazil, Canada (known as the Canadian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology; CSBMCB), Chile, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, ASBMB and the American Chemical Society-Division of Biological Chemistry. In addition there are two Adherent Societies, the Biochemical Societies of Spain and Portugal. Their delegates are non-voting members of the Council. As indicated in the Statutes, the purpose of the PABMB is to promote and support the growth and advancement of the sciences and education of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology particularly among the Biochemical Societies in the Western Hemisphere. In doing this, PABMB has sponsored, promoted and supported a number of meetings between the PABMB-associated societies in presenting and discussing scientific discoveries in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It has also sponsored and helped organize special courses for advanced students in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and has sponsored the exchange of faculty and students between institutions engaged in research and teaching. In the furtherance of these aims, the Association has worked closely with other organizations having similar objectives, for example, the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB). Indeed it must be said at this point that the IUBMB has been a most supportive organization of PABMB and very much in financial support. PABMB is very happy to be a regional organization associated with IUBMB. With IUBMB support and with the dues provided by the Constituent and Adherent Societies, PABMB has been able every third year to sponsor a PABMB Congress meeting. Indeed ten Congress meetings have occurred with the last one, the PABMB Congress in Pinamar, Argentina in December, 2005. These meetings have brought many scientists from the LatinAmerican countries together with scientists from the USA and Canada. The main representatives from Latin-America usually are from Brazil, Argentina and Chile with the largest Received 2 February 2007; accepted 2 February 2007 Address correspondence to: Jack Preiss, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. E-mail: preiss@msu.edu IUBMBLife, 59(4 – 5): 212 – 213, April –May 2007

Providing grants to attend scientific meetings

Catherine Arden of the William Leech Medical School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, used a Biochemical Society Bursary to attend the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) conference in San Francisco.

Reporting Protein Identification Data

In June 2004, in response to a growing concern among both editors and reviewers, we published a set of instructions to authors, developed in house by a committee chaired by Steve Carr, which spelled out criteria for reporting protein identifications determined by mass spectrometry. The overall response from the community at large to this effort was quite favorable, and we were encouraged to expand on this document by soliciting broader input from a larger group of stakeholders with the view of fashioning a universal set of guidelines that might be useful, in general, for publishers of journals reporting this type of data. Accordingly, with support from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and the organizational skills of Mike Baldwin, including important input from Steve Carr, Ruedi Aebersold, and Al Burlingame, a two-day workshop was held in mid-May 2005 in the Maison de la Chimie in Paris, France, that was attended by 30 (of the 60 invited) scientists, engineers, bioinformaticians, and editors/publishers representing academia, research/government institutes, and the private sector (see below). This group reflected an excellent cross-section of individuals involved in the development of mass spectrometry and its proteomic applications. The attendees spent a day presenting/discussing the issues, and then, using the Carr guidelines as a point of departure, divided into four subgroups, with each working through a section. The four rewritten (or, in some cases, new) sections were resynthesized into a single document and were then subjected to further postmeeting editing. In mid-July the draft document was released and broadly disseminated for public comment, suggestions, and criticism. In October, these were collated and returned to the original Paris groups for further editing. The final document was assembled in late January/early February 2006. In mid-February, the final guidelines were aired and discussed at an open forum at the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF) meeting in Long Beach, CA. They have been subsequently sent to the editors of journals interested in this type of data. The guidelines are now posted on the MCP website (http:// www.mcponline.org) and have been officially adopted by the journal as the instructions to authors for papers in this area. They eventually will be shifted to that part of the journal, but we felt initially that it was appropriate to make them as visible as possible. At the same time that the Paris guidelines were being developed, MCP incorporated a mechanism for evaluating papers for their compliance with the guidelines (initially the Carr guidelines but now those developed in Paris) that inserts an independent evaluation in the review process. A simplified outline of the guidelines in the form of a checklist is used and will be returned to authors by the Associate Editor that documents any areas of deficiency. The checklist will also be sent to the reviewers, along with the submitted materials to facilitate the review and to make compliance with the guidelines more consistent. Additional comments also may be added to help clarify the problems detected. This assessment is not considered to be a review, and unless the deficiencies are deemed to be so great by the Associate Editor, after receiving the checker’s report, that in the Associate Editor’s opinion the manuscript cannot be appropriately reviewed until the deficiencies are corrected, they will be returned along with the usual reviewer critiques, and the compliance issues can be dealt with at the time any other corrections/changes are made. Our initial experiences with this independent evaluation have been quite favorable, and we feel that it is already having the desired effect of bringing papers reporting protein identifications into a more consistent form. However, the main goal of these efforts was to address the problem of misidentifications and secure the integrity of the scientific literature. To this end we naturally hope that authors, reviewers and editors alike will find these guidelines useful and worthy of serious consideration. We also appreciate that science is a dynamic process and that today’s guidelines can become tomorrow’s burdens. Therefore, we will be watchful for advances in technology that make any part of these guidelines obsolete and will welcome suggestions and comments that will aid us in keeping them current. We would also like to thank the many people who contributed freely of their time to make this goal a reality. We particularly thank Alexey Nesvizhskii, Robert Chalkley, and Karl Clauser for their help in preparing the original Carr document, to Mike Baldwin and all the participants at the Paris meeting, and to the ASBMB for their financial and intellectual support.

Serving science while paying the bills: the history of the Journal of Biological Chemistry Online

ABSTRACTRecent developments in the publication of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) are discussed, particularly the development of the electronic version of the Journal, JBC Online, and the opportunities and challenges that this mode of publication has presented to its publisher, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and its mission of service.

Introducing a new undergraduate biochemistry/molecular biology curriculum recommended by the American Society for Biochemistry and molecular biology (ASBMB)

Biochemistry throughout much of its history has been a field reserved for postbaccalaureate study. Universities in the United States established biochemistry (often called physiological chemistry) departments in the late 19th century and early 20th century primarily to train students for the M.Sc., Ph.D., and M.D. degrees. Therefore, the curriculum of biochemistry programs and courses was driven by basic research and topics in medical/clinical education. The exact time and institutions with the first undergraduate biochemistry programs are uncertain, but some universities began such programs in the 1950s, while a few liberal arts colleges followed suit in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Perhaps a major impetus for the expansion of undergraduate programs was the publication of Lehninger’s Biochemistry, the first textbook that was written and designed with undergraduate students in mind. Lehninger used what he called “molecular