This resource offers 228 clinically-oriented biochemistry learning objectives for the pre-clerkship years, developed by the Association of Biochemistry Educators to connect foundational biochemistry with clinical practice. Using a backward-design approach built on the Aquifer Sciences Curriculum, ABE's Educational Resource Development Committee reviewed all 785 Aquifer integrated learning objectives (ILOs), identified the 155 requiring biochemistry knowledge, and revised and expanded the original 2011 ABE objectives to directly support them. Each objective is tagged by Common Condition, Core Concept, Major Topic, and Sub-Topic, and is linked to its corresponding Aquifer ILOs — along with their associated teaching points and harm statements — so students and educators can move seamlessly between foundational mechanisms and clinical application.
The searchable database supports multiple uses: pre-clerkship students can trace a biochemistry concept forward to its clinical relevance (and prepare for board exams and clerkships); clerkship students and faculty can start from a patient presentation and trace back to the underlying biochemistry; and curriculum designers and administrators can use the tagging structure to identify gaps, reduce redundancy, and align institutional objectives with a clinically-grounded framework
The development of the learning objectives and description of how they can be used is in the following publication:
Spicer, D.B., Fong, S.F.T., Myers, L.C. et al. Bridging the Gap: Developing Integrated Biochemistry Learning Objectives that Connect Foundational Science with Clinical Practice. Med.Sci.Educ. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-026-02905-2