chemistry.
Marjorie Ann Jones teaches Biochemistry (chemistry of living things) to undergraduate and graduate students at
Illinois State University. In her classes, they use a lot of chemical facts as well as some math to help understand how
living things do the necessary chemical reactions to live. This is very interesting especially when they study how foods
are digested and used by cells. In addition she does research on an enzyme involved in heme synthesis (heme is the
molecule which makes the blood red since it forms a complex with a protein-thereby forming hemoglobin which works to
carry oxygen to cells). This research is very interesting since they can ask experimental questions about what the
enzyme does, how it works, what mechanism is used to do this work, how the enzyme is regulated and what happens if
there is a problem with the system. Jones and her students work along side in the lab using biochemical techniques
to isolate and identify proteins and various molecules involved in the protein activities of cells. It is fun but a
lot of work. Additional information on her research can be found on the Web Site for Illinois State University,
Department of chemistry.
