Fundamentals of Basic Sciences

The Fundamentals of Basic Sciences course is aimed at providing students with fundamental elements of chemistry and physics that are relevant to medical doctors, a mandatory knowledge to understand metabolism processes, interactions between structure, chemical properties and function of compounds found in living organisms, and to create simple and manageable physical models that recapitulate complex phenomena in biological systems. The chemistry module provides a rigorous introduction to the fundamentals of general and bio-organic chemistry. The structure of this module meets the requirements of the area of life sciences and aims to offer a foundation for further study in chemistry-related disciplines such as biology and biochemistry. The physics module offers an introduction to Physics focusing on medical applications. The focus of the lectures will be mostly on mechanics, thermodynamics and electrical phenomena, with a brief introduction to the importance of modeling and quantitative thinking in medicine and on feedback and control theory. The proposed approach is meant to privilege general concepts and ideas with strong applications toward understanding and explaining the working principles of the Human Body.

Students are expected to achieve knowledge on: - the carbon atom and the nature of its bonds - chemical kinetics and energy. Chemical equilibrium (role of catalysts) - nature and properties of aqueous solutions (osmotic pressure) - acid/base equilibria and buffer solutions. - redox reactions in inorganic and organic chemistry and related energy - structures and chemico-physical properties of the principal class of organic compounds - reactivity of the main classes of organic compounds - structure, reactivity and function of the most relevant biomolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and proteins) - forces and biomechanics - temperature, gases and breathing - heat and metabolism, thermal motion, and molecular disorder - wave mechanics.