Becoming a Bioscientist: Biochemical Skills - BIO00030C

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Module summary

Becoming a Bioscientist: Biochemical Skills is the second of four sequential modules that allow students to develop the necessary skills to be a successful, competent graduate level bioscientist. 

Students will practice collection of data in experiments that they have some control over designing,  and develop data analysis skills, professional skills (e.g. report writing and problem solving ) and transferable skills (e.g. team work) that are part of the wider remit of the year 1 skills training programme. The module will allow Biochemistry students to gain practical experience of key laboratory techniques and analytical approaches used in modern biochemistry. 

The module is taught through practicals, workshops, tutorials, lectures and independent study that are integrated together.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2026-27

Module aims

In this module students will  practice and develop skills in both synthetic chemical and biochemical analytical methods relevant to modern biochemistry. Through carrying out practicals they will further develop skills around laboratory safety, experimental design and best practice for documenting and recordkeeping of experimental work. The module enables students to consolidate and practice the professional skills associated with being a biochemist including the presentation of scientific information (including report writing and reviewing literature). In order to interpret experimental data students will develop more advanced data collection, and analysis skills including the use of appropriate statistical analysis techniques. Practical work will be complemented by lectures to develop an understanding of how the laws of kinetics can be applied to chemical and biological systems including approaches to monitoring reaction rates and using integrated rate laws to process experimental data in Stage 1 and beyond. Students will consider their own personal development as an individual by reflecting on their strengths and how to apply these skills and strengths in different settings

Module learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this module will be able to:

• Gain extended competency in practical synthetic and analytical chemistry and biochemical techniques and interpretation of resulting experimental data 

• Understand how the laws of kinetics can be applied to biological systems to monitor enzymatic reaction rates

• Appropriately select classical univariate statistical tests and some non-parametric equivalents to a given dataset and scenario and recognise when these are not suitable

• Use R to perform statistical  analyses, reproducibly, on data in a variety of formats and present the results graphically

• Communicate research in scientific reports and oral presentations

• Describe and reflect on their strengths

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	20.0
Essay/coursework	80.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	20.0
Essay/coursework	80.0

Module feedback

Marks for all summative assessments will be made available to you and your supervisor via e:vision. Feedback will be either individual or cohort-level, depending on the assessment format. You should take the opportunity to discuss your marks and feedback with your supervisor.

For exam-style summative assessment, model answers will be provided for all questions along with cohort-level feedback indicating how students answered questions in general. Marks achieved per question will be added to your script.

For coursework assessments (eg. reports or essays) you will receive individual feedback on your work. This will usually be in the form of a feedback sheet that will include suggestions for further improvement.

During the teaching of the module you will receive formative feedback that may be at a whole class or individual level. Such feedback may include: model answers and discussion of workshop questions, summaries of performance in practicals, VLE-based quizzes, individual spoken comments during workshops, individual written comments on formative work.

Indicative reading

These are available through the VLE module site.