Welcome

Welcome to the online steroid pathway. This site is an open educational resource to provide ongoing education related to steroid metabolism, primarily disorders of sex development.

The aim of this interactive pathway is to provide

a resource of routine and esoteric clinical cases;
integrate information available from mass spectrometry based analytical techniques relevant to clinical diagnosis; and
to support on-going learning in the field of steroid metabolism. Note: this site is aimed as a resource for clinical biochemistry related cases and analysis and does NOT incorporate information (clinical or analytical) related to doping in sport.

Instructions

CASE Studies

To investigate a particular enzyme defect, click on the enzyme of interest. e.g. If you would like to know more about 17 alpha hydroxylase deficiency, click on 17 alpha OHase.
Part of the steroid pathway is now greyed out, demonstrating the steroids that are now missing.
There will be one or more example cases as examples. Click on the case to view the example steroid pattern. Now look back at the pathway - can you see why some steroids are increased and others are missing
If the case has an analytical picture - click on the picture to have a closer look at the technique/s used to determine the steroid levels related to this case.

ANALYTICAL

If you would like to find out more about each individual steroid, you can click on the steroid to look at the information provided by the Royal Society of Chemistry (ChemSpider).

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS

If you are enrolled in one of my courses at RMIT, specific revision questions related to the cases are available via Blackboard
If you are a first time user of this interactive pathway, please click here for further instructions.

Acknowledgements

This interactive steroid pathway has been adapted from a published figure and is reproduced by permission of Elsevier from A guide to understanding the steroid pathway: new insights and diagnostic implications, by Greaves RF, Jawilakar G, Hewitt J, Zacharin MR. Clinical Biochemistry, Vol 47, No, pp 5-15, Copyright 2014 by Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists”. Click here to go to the PubMed link to this manuscript - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25086367. Bill Reid (graphic artist at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne) developed the figure related to the steroid pathway in this publication.

This educational tool has been developed as part of a Global Learning by Design Project awarded to Dr Ronda Greaves in 2015. The project team who developed the initial interactive version of this pathway at RMIT University are:

Bill Lane (web developer),
Celine Bonin (web developer)
Emily Glen (graphic artist)
Mr Nevada Tavita
Prof Margaret Zacharin

Authors

For information about the author visit https://www.mcri.edu.au/users/dr-ronda-greaves

Feedback

Suggestions for topics, content or contributions may be made by contacting A/Prof Ronda Greaves - ronda.greaves@mcri.edu.au

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