Marks’ Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach Sixth

Book Preface

It has been 5 years since the fifth edition was completed. The sixth edition has some significant organizational changes, as suggested by extensive surveys of faculty and students who used the fifth edition in their classes and studies. The major pedagogic features of the text remain. They have been enhanced by the following changes for the fifth edition:

1. Every patient history has been reviewed and revised to reflect current standards of care (as of 2020). A small number of new patients have been added.
2. The Biochemical Comments associated with each chapter have been updated, where appropriate, to allow students to experience where current research efforts are headed.
3. Chapters 10 and 11 of the fifth edition have been combined into one chapter (Chapter 10 of the sixth edition), which required condensation of the material presented.
4. A new chapter (Chapter 18) on human genetics has been added to the text. The total number of chapters in the sixth edition is 47, just as in the fifth edition. The order and content of Chapters 19 to 47 in the sixth edition are the same as in the fifth edition.
5. The number of printed review questions at the end of each chapter has been increased to 15, up from 10 questions per chapter in the fifth edition (705 total questions). In addition, end-of-section questions have also been added online (15 questions per section, for a total of 105 questions). The online question bank associated with the text has also been increased to 665 questions, as compared to 560 questions associated with the fourth edition. Where possible, questions are presented in National Board of Medical Examiners format.

As stated in previous editions, in revising a text geared primarily toward medical students, the authors always struggle with new advances in biochemistry and whether such advances should be included in the text. We have taken the approach of only including advances that will enable the student to better relate biochemistry to medicine and future diagnostic tools. Although providing incomplete, but exciting, advances to graduate students is best for their education, medical students benefit more from a more directed approach—one that emphasizes how biochemistry is useful for the practice of medicine. This is a major goal of this text.
Any errors are the responsibility of the authors, and we would appreciate being notified when such errors are found.
The accompanying website for this edition of MARKS’ Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach contains the aforementioned additional multiple-choice questions for review, summaries of all patients described in the text (patient cases), all chapter references and additional reading (with links to the article in PubMed, where applicable), a listing of diseases discussed in the book (with links to appropriate websites for more information), additional material for certain chapters that is ancillary to the main points of the text (they are indicated by an online icon in the text) , and a summary of all of the methods described throughout the text.