Preparing for University: Life Science Prep Classes Pt. 1

Life Sciences at the University of Toronto is quite a popular program, especially for people who dream of getting into medical school. It’s sort of the easiest option because you cover a lot of the pre-requisites of med school as requirements of your degree: certain courses, research work etc. I’ve been dreaming of studying in the Life Sci program at UofT since I found out the program existed (it was in Grade 5, I think) so I’m very excited to begin doing just that this fall.

As thrilled as I am about it, I know the program is a huge leap from what I’ve been studying in high school. And for that reason, I decided I would take every opportunity of help that came my way and prepare myself as much I could to make my first year easier. This has included workshops, study groups, and, most importantly, the prep classes UofT has begun offering. In this post, I’ll be talking about the prep classes for Life Sciences in general.

The course was meant to help us understand the difference between high school classes and university classes, as well as adjust a bit to the possible expectations of our professors. It was a 4-week course/program/session with 2 lectures, a paper to read and a quiz to take. Along with that came the opportunity to be a part of a study group and meet people who could be taking some of the same classes as you in the fall or winter.

I signed up for the classes the second I got the email; I signed up to facilitate my study group (behave like a moderator), too. Before the course started, I had to participate in a training session for people who had asked to facilitate. It was mostly about how to make everyone in the group feel comfortable with each other, how to use the features of the platform being used for the meetings and things to discuss during the meetings besides the content given to us each week. I’m not sure if that helped much, but it was a fun, hour-long session and I made some friends in the chat.

The first lecture was also an hour-long, on the topic of the biology of exercise. First, the professor highlighted the general pros and cons of exercising regularly like better mental and physical health vs. diabetes and cardiovascular diseases etc. Then, he began to go into detail about why the cons happen. His explanation was that fat cells, or adipocytes, are always secreting chemicals, some good and some bad. When more of the bad chemicals are released, it leads to inflammation, which leads to immune responses, which in turn isn’t helpful to the body either. They lower insulin sensitivity and can somewhat decrease cognitive function, therefore affecting several parts of the body, and causing a vast number of problems.

Then, he talked about two molecules that increase in quantity when we exercise, which have a positive effect on the body, called Interleukin-6 and Irisin.

IL-6 is released from muscle cells due to a biochemical pathway triggered by the increase of Ca+ molecules, which happens when muscle cells contract during exercise (I wish I could attach the images from the presentation but I’m not sure if it’s copyrighted or not. I don’t know how to cite a lecture video yet). IL-6 has quite a few benefits. It increases glucose uptake in the liver and the brain, encourages lipolysis (the breakdown of fat cells to release fatty acids), and indirectly inhibits the function of an inflammatory molecule, TNF-alpha (Tumor Necrosis Factor). I said indirectly because IL-6 stimulates the production of IL-1ra and IL-10, once the exercise is over. The quantity of IL-10 peaks a while after the peak of IL-6, usually when IL-6 is barely around anymore. The IL-10 then inhibits TNF-alpha. Therefore IL-6 does it indirectly.

Irisin is the more controversial molecule of the two he explained. Its existence was discovered by Dr. Bruce Spiegelman and was highly debated by other scientists, many of whom called it a myth. The explanation of irisin was that it’s a part of a bigger molecule, FNDC 5 (Fibronectin domain-containing protein 5). FNDC 5 is a membrane protein that has a fragment of it (irisin) cleaved and released into the bloodstream. Irisin stimulates the production of brown adipose tissue (the good kind) and could be a reason for increased levels of BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) which is essential in the maintenance of healthy neurons and neurogenesis (growth and development of nerves).

The lecture was an hour-long, but it took me from Friday till Monday to finish watching it and taking appropriate notes. It was a little hard to sit like that after almost 5 months of only doing written assignments. But I managed to finish it before the first study group meeting. Our time to meet was Tuesday at 8 PM. It was just three of us girls in that group, at least for that meeting. We talked about our high school experiences and what we expected from university. We exchanged study tips and discussed the lecture a bit. One of us hadn’t watched the lecture so we kept the discussion super basic to be accommodating, because there was a lot in the lecture notes that you couldn’t understand without watching the video. Even then, our first meeting lasted almost 2 hours. It was a lot of fun for me to see new people, people other than my parents. I liked it a lot.

I’m going to talk about the rest of the course in my next post. Keep an eye out for it 😊. Till then, toodles – Aarushi \