Protein Structure, Function and Biophysics

Advanced topics in protein structure, function, and biophysics. Commences with brief treatment of essential elements of kinetics, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics necessary for a thorough understanding of topics to be presented later and continues with detailed coverage of enzyme kinetics and ligand binding, chemical modification, site-directed mutagenesis, x-ray crystallography, spectroscopic techniques used to investigate conformation, and the folding of proteins, including Circular Dichroism, Fluorescence and NMR; and computational approaches used to compute and visualize both structure and reaction. Second half of course focuses on three classes of proteins and associated themes: 1) kinases, phosphatases, and regulation, 2) proteases and processes and 3) oligomeric enzymes and allosteric models. Three lecture and three laboratory hours per week.