r/Biochemistry

I'm trying to find popular source articles related to biochemistry to see how they describe topics to a general audience and gauge their overall accuracy, but it's surprisingly difficult to get search results to filter out the actual good, peer-reviewed stuff, and leave behind the blogs and news stories to dig through.

Are there any popular sources out there that people have noticed post biochemistry related topics before? Doesn't matter how trash or not-trash they are. Anything helps!

I'm somewhat familiar with the "usual" plant chemicals ie. Carbon, hydrogen, ozygen, nitrogen but it has left me wondering, can any plants make usage of reactions with salt/sea salt. I know there are plants like mangroves that can survive salty environments but im unsure if they merely protect themselves from it vs if they can make use of it. Are you aware of any plants that produce compounds from salt? What other "atypical" elements can feature in plant compounds

Hi everyone! I have a bit of an annoying issue in the lab and I'm hoping someone might be able to share some insight that helps

I purchased 50 mg of catalase enzyme and need to prepare a stock solution of 0.8 mg/mL - the purpose is to use it in an imaging buffer for single molecule localisation microscopy, catalase is used alongside glucose oxidase to reduce oxidative photobleaching.

This afternoon, I tried to dissolve 12 mg in 15 mL of my buffer (10 mM HEPES, 150 mM NaCl, 10 mM MgCl2, pH 7.4) but found it didnt dissolve very well at all. I tried heating at 30°C for an hour or so but that didnt seem to help. I then tried centrifuging, discarding the buffer and attempting to dissolve in distilled water, to no success.

The internet tells me that it should dissolve easily up to 1 mg/mL in water and neutral buffers (specifically mentioning phosphate buffer, which I will try next if nothing else)

Does anyone have any experience or advice? Thanks in advance!

hi, im not really passionate in this field, but im passionate towards forensics, that’s why im doing this degree because i heard it was a gateway to the forensics world, i was interested in pathology until i learned you had to go to medical school and i don’t have it in me so im kinda lost. What i really want to do is music production and art, but i want to move out of my dads house as quickly as i can (hard relationships in fam) i guess im just a bit sad. i cant do what i really want to do because i just cant tell the future or how jobs will look. i have no portfolio for music and i know the music scene is portfolio based and not degree based, i keep trying to tell myself i can always learn music on my own, but that just makes me even more depressed. i tell myself im doing stem to fund my hobbies, but its taking a toll on me. this isnt career advice, this is just a vent post

I am trying to find out how the niacin is 'bound' in unprocessed corn as in what chemical form. In detail, I want to understand how processing the raw form of corn such as nixtamalization and boiling 'unbinds' the niacin into more easily absorbable form for humans and animals. In another words, I want to know the chemical form of 'bound form of niacin' which turns into the chemical form of 'unbound form of niacin' via some type of post-harvest processing.

I read through Maize in human nutrition (Food and Agriculture Organization oF the United Nations, 1992: https://www.fao.org/4/T0395E/T0395E00.htm) to find out what I want, but I could not really find the information I want.

Does anyone know about this?

Thanks.

hey guys, I built this:
https://bio-atlas.vercel.app

It's an evidence map of over 200+ biohacking compounds either I've come across or found in the communities that I'm a part of. I then had an AI agent go and find relevant papers. I haven't been able to fact check everything so keep that in mind. There's so much out there and I needed a way to view things clearly. I hope other people might have use in this.
The more critical eyes on it, the better.

I think this grey science space is getting a little too "vibes" based and not science and I wanted to create a resource for people to actually start their research with evidence.

I know it’s not perfect yet, so people poking holes in it is exactly what would make it better.

What would be the effect on the pH of an average human body by eating 16 oz of chopped kale in one sitting, by virtue of kale being an alkaline food?

I want to pursue my career in structural biology and I want to purchase a new laptop. My budget is upto 60k rs.(625$) So can someone guide me which laptop I should buy? I mostly want to run pymol, chimera, chimera x and maybe sometimes coot and even blender

I’m hoping to include my research into my grad cap design, but I’m stuck on how to represent the protein itself. Was thinking of those curly ribbons? Would love to see what ideas everyone has

hello, i'm working with a novel fusion protein. it's highly aggregation-prone, and right now it's in 8M urea-containing buffer. When diluting it stepwise from 8-->4-->2M, the protein remains mostly soluble. however, i'm having issues maintaining solubility when dropping from 2 to 1M. i'm diluting my buffers very slowly (over the course of an hour with constant mixing in the cold), but the proteins still are crashing out. My buffer components are: 50mM tris-HCL, 100mM KCl, 10% glycerol, pH 8 (PI of protein is 9.7). i've tried adding arginine and increasing the salt concentration, but my proteins still crash out. if anyone could help, that would be greatly appreciated. thank you!

Trying to decide what classes to take?

Want to know what the job outlook is with a biochemistry degree?

Trying to figure out where to go for graduate school, or where to get started?

Ask those questions here.

Hi everyone, if you are a chemical biologist, I would love to know what a day in your life looks like! I am super interested in understanding arrow pushing mechanisms and even more so in biology! Do you guys study this in your daily lives? do you think about this electron tracking across peptides and so on? like nucleophilic additions to amino acids, carbohydrates and so on?

I would love some advice on where to put my love for this.

If you could reach out to me or comment, I would love to know.

Thanks!

I started self-studying biochem earlier this week and was hoping for some guidance. I’m a little lost. I finished reading the first 3 chapters of the UWorld Biochem textbook and only have metabolism and metabolic reactions left. However, I haven’t been memorising just reading, understanding and trying to grasp everything. I was wondering what steps should I take now? Ik the metabolic pathways is the most difficult section so should I go back first and start to really memorise and comprehend everything or finish reading and understanding then going back and really understanding everything. I would really appreciate some guidance on how I should schedule my time because I am devoting this summer to MCAT and want to make the most of my time. Please help, thanks!

I’m graduating next week with a BS in biochemistry, and our class was told about becoming ACS certified (if we took inorganic and a chemistry research credit), which I think 90% of us (including me) never did. However, last week, I got an email from ACS sending me my credentials for becoming ACS Certified! I asked my professor about it, and she was confused. None of my friends got it, either, even though we all never did any of the ACS-required classes.

Did the requirements change to get certified? Or has this happened to anyone else? TIA.

Hi everyone, I’m a Master's student studying leaf senescence and I’m sufferying trying to estimate protease activity using an agar diffusion assay, but I’ve hit a wall.

So, the method was simple:

1. Medium: 1.5% Agar enriched with 0.1% BSA.
2. Procedure: I pipette a protein-rich extract (lyophilized leaves in phosphate buffer, normalized to 0.1 mg of protein) into small pits in the agar.
3. Incubation: 24 hours at room temperature.
4. Staining: 2 hours with Coomassie Brilliant Blue (CBB), followed by a destaining solution.

The Problem: In my head (and my supervisor’s), the proteases should digest the BSA, leaving a colorless/clear halo around the wells. Instead, I’m getting the exact opposite: darker blue halos around the pits.

What I’ve tried so far:

• Adjusting the exposure time for both the Coomassie stain and the destainer. (not better)
• Moving to a colorimetric method using Azocasein, but the substrate doesn't seem to dissolve completely and is very difficult to work with.

I feel like I'm the only person I know doing this specific method for coffee leaves. Has anyone dealt with these "reverse halos" before? Could it be protein-protein interference or the high concentration of my extract proteins staining more than the BSA?

Any advice on how to fix this or a recommendation for a more reliable protease assay for plant tissue would be a lifesaver!

My question is in the title. I’ll be starting university in September. Just generally wondering because I was looking at possible useful/recommended/related electives to take in the later years of my degree. Also, what are the most common ones (besides more chem)?

I am trying to do something similar. I would need your help. Please DM. Thank you very much.