User:WeepingBritney/Hypoxia prof review

Quality of teaching aid:

The level of the article is a little advanced for junior or senior level undergraduates. It uses a lot of medical terminology that might not be grasped by many students at this level and would be more appropriate for upper level graduate students. The article is presented in a logical manner, progression from definitions and symptoms to types and pathophysiology. I would not recommend this article for my students because it does not address a lot of the things about hypoxia that I find important, including the hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs), hypoxias role in several disease states (i.e. cancer) and some of the biochemical consequences of hypoxia.

Quality as summary of the topic:

I do not think the article covers the topic very completely. As mentioned above, the article does not talk about HIFs, the transcription factors that control a cells response to hypoxia. It also does not address the pathology of hypoxia as it relates to disease states very thoroughly. I would have liked to see a more in depth review. Yes, the basic definitions of hypoxia are covered; however, the more medical terms used in the review are not adequately covered. The amount of detail is adequate and in some places too much detail is given. For example, the authors discussed the different responses in the lung and did not really spend much time on other tissues. There are no glaring errors or omissions but I would have liked a more thorough discussion of hypoxia signaling. The article is a general review of the topic with little quantitation or precision. Again, since it is a general review, it is up to date but little of the “newer” understandings with regard to hypoxia signaling is included in the article. There is no historical development of the topic.

Readability:

I did not think the article was very well written. It used medical terminology in several places without definitions and then defined other terms. It also did not spend enough time on the pathophysiology section and this might make it difficult for a general reader to understand the biochemical consequences of hypoxia. The flow of the article is fine given the generalized nature of the review. The article is not redundant.

Figures:

There are no figures in the review.

References:

The article is not referenced very thoroughly. It has only one reference and four footnotes. Two of the footnotes appear redundant. As stated above, the topic could have been expanded and more up to date reference material used. Since the review was medically oriented I would have expected more medical journal references.

It should also be noted that wikipedia does have a small section on hypoxia inducible factors that is not under the “See also” section of the review.