Thinking Through the Laboratory: A Chemistry 130L Workbook

How do doctors measure what diseases you have? Have you ever wondered how a hospital can tell if it’s a heart attack or just indigestion? How do pregnancy tests measure if you’re pregnant?

In Thinking Through the Laboratory: A Chemistry 130L Workbook, we explain the fundamental chemistry behind diagnostic tests and create a lab environment to enhance the understanding of diagnostic science. Students will evaluate case files and perform point-of-care tests on samples with the goals of understanding the mechanisms that cause disease and the signals that allow us to diagnose them.

This course is designed with three goals in mind: simple explanations of diagnostic chemistry, linking chemistry concepts and skills to medical physiology, and creating a lab environment that is easy to manage and instruct. Labs are designed for easy management and workflow, with a ‘tear and turn-in’ format. The student experience is centered on chemical concepts and their ties to physiology, as well as learning how to create quantitative and qualitative scientific data.