LEGO Biochemistry: Fatty Acid Beta-Oxidation Made Visual

Abstract

Fatty Acid Beta-Oxidation (FABO) is often taught as part of the lipid metabolism chapter in many undergraduate biochemistry syllabi. As a spiral metabolic pathway, its number of cycles depend on the length and types of fatty acid being metabolized. For simplification purposes, textbooks usually omit certain steps involved in the metabolism of fatty acid, showing only about 6 steps for a 32 steps reaction. This greatly reduces students’ cognitive clarity towards the process and its subsequent ATP calculations. To overcome such issues, an approach to teach FABO using LEGO bricks as hands-on visualization tools has been developed and implemented. Students could now follow the full progression of FABO by interacting with the palm-sized bricks, regardless of the length and types of fatty acid being studied. The approach is able to help students learn FABO and its corresponding ATP calculations with ease and further encourages the use of LEGO bricks in the visualization of other metabolic pathways in biochemistry.