CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

What elements/molecules are we expected to know the biological importance/function of?

I am not sure about exact molecules but I remember Dr. Lavelle said that for proteins, shape is very important so acids or any change in pH in general can be devastating towards the protein structure so perhaps any striking change in pH or temperature could be of biological importance

I second the statement above about the effect of pH on protein functionality. I would assume everything in the lectures that Dr. Lavelle goes into detail about is fair game.

I'm not sure specifically. I believe the fact that pH impacts function in biological systems is probably the biggest takeaway. I'll just list what other parts i remember that where mentioned: Copper, Zinc, and Nickel contribute to enzyme function (which speed up reactions), Iron is important in electron transfer, chromium is involved with insulin, and cobalt is important in vitamin b12. Also there is the cisplatin molecule that is a form of chemotherapy since it bonds to nucleotides in DNA preventing it to split, and the myoglobin complex that can transfer O2.

I remember Lavelle saying the top-most d block row of elements is biologically important because he made a joke about the lower elements tending to be poisonous to life. lol

In class, we did discuss cisplatin and hemoglobin/myoglobin, but I think he was discussing these more to show the prevalence of coordination compounds in biological systems. It certainly wouldn't hurt to understand a little bit about how these molecules function, but I don't think we need to know the mechanics of these molecules or anything.

I think understanding the molecules that have a biological importance that Lavelle went over in class like cisplatin and myglobins will be good to know. In addition, during lecture, he went over a bunch of elements in the first row of the d-block and went over their biological importance.