The Lighter Side

Song: Biochemistry Pie (To the Tune of ‘‘American Pie’’)*hS

Received for publication, August 24, 2007

Kevin Ahern‡

From the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331

A long nine weeks agoI can still rememberHow the lectures sometimes made me smileI pushed myself to study lotsSo I could fill my head with thoughtsAnd then I’d find the effort all worthwhile

But mid-term one, it left me jadedI worried as exams were gradedSad news came from KevinThe average—forty seven

It was so bad I went in shockI couldn’t stand to hear the talkOf Henderson and HasselbalchAnd bi-o-che-mis-try

So why why biochemistry whyDoes percent misrepresent thatMy attention is high?And all the students have a rallying crySingin’ I will be a studious guyI will be a studious guy

Did you draw an alanine?And can you titrate a histidine?If you know its p-K-aNow do you believe you’ll have it madeIf you can pull a decent gradeAnd can recitation lead me to an ‘‘A?’’

Well we learned that protein structure isA bunch of pleats and helixesTrue beauty to beholdMan I dig how proteins fold!

There are seniors in pre-pharmacyLearning all that chromatographyGel filtration/HPLCFor bi-o-che-mis-try

I started Singin’Why why biochemistry whyMust performance be enormous forMy grade to be high?And all the students have a rallying crySingin’ I will be a studious guyI will be a studious guy

Now for ten weeks we’ve been crammin’ inThe fact that nuc-le-i have spinBut that’s not all there is to seeThere are six enzyme classes from ECA cat-a-lytic triad threeAnd a voice that whispers Delta G

Oh, with enzymes there are lots of factsLike low Kms and high V maxSome zymogens break downIf trypsin is aroundAnd while Kevin lectured Milam HallHis camera captured movies smallSometimes they had no sound at allIn bi-o-che-mis-try

We were singingWhy why biochemistry whyShould I lament my last percentIf my incentive was high?And all the students have a rallying crySingin’ I will be a studious guyI will be a studious guy

R state, T state metabolic soul matesProtein forms that we appreciateATCase binding siiii----iiiitesThey grab a C-T-P uprightThe enzyme gets itself uptightWith aspartate on the sidelines out of sight

Then the stage was set for ex-am twoAnd some of us were feeling blueI almost lost my nerveWhoa, ’til I moved up on the curve’cause my memory to me revealedThe answers that had been concealedAs if the key had been unsealedFor bi-o-che-mis-try

*Copyright � 2007 Kevin AhernhS The online version of this article is available at http://www.

davincipress.com/metabmelodies.html‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 541-

737-2305. E-mail: ahernk@orst.edu.

DOI 10.1002/bmb.20138 This paper is available on line at http://www.bambed.org380

Q 2008 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY EDUCATION

Vol. 36, No. 5, pp. 380–381, 2008

I’m always Singin’Why why biochemistry whyMust a student be so prudentJust to qua-a-lify?And all the students have a rallying crySingin’ I will be a studious guyI will be a studious guy

(two stanzas skipped here)

We all pulled down the MP3sAnd memorized the older keysThen I just smiled and carried onI went down to the class web siteTo download ev-e-ry highlightBut the server said the pages were all gone

And in their rooms, the students stayedThe chemists crammed and the pre-meds prayedThere was no indecisionThe end was in our vision

And the section that had made me fretThe questions for the problem setI nailed them all without a sweatIn bi-o-che-mis-try

And I was singin’Bye bye biochemistry byeYou can debit all my credit’Cause my grade is so highAnd all the students have a rallying crySingin’ there’ll be a party tonightThere’ll be a party tonight

And I was singin’Bye bye biochemistry byeYou can debit all my credit’Cause my grade is so highAnd all the students have a rallying crySingin’ there’ll be a party tonight

381