Structure determines Function – knowledge connected to the past

What knowledge have you connected with past knowledge?

(Original Photo by J Russell)

One piece of knowledge that is always good to go back to is the basic concept of structure determines function.  I learned this vital piece of information in the beginning of my of study of biology and it still holds true for biochemistry today. Just as the mantra that carbon can only form four bonds from organic chemistry which comes back at the same time.  Welcome to chapter sixteen which introduces a seemingly harmless topic of carbohydrates.  Now who can hate carbohydrates?  They provide the all important sugar (glucose) for our body to produce energy which is essential to live. Well here is the catch, not all carbohydrates (CHO) are created equal. The configuration, spacial arrangement, (structure) of the CHO has a direct impact on the function. Why is that important to know?  Carbohydrates play a role in the processes that take palce at surface of cells and in immune recognition. So it would be important to know the structure of the CHO when designing drugs for interaction. The reemergence of stereochemistry involving concepts such as highest chiral C, carbon connected to four different groups, and alpha (opposite side) versus beta (same side) linkage were much easier to comprehend the second time around.  Learning it for a second time and applying it to a new concept of metabolism seems allowed me to better understand and apply the concepts of organic chemistry.