Biochemistry: Protein Structure and Function

Proteins are biological macromolecules that are essential for life. They perform key functions, such as providing structure to cells and tissues, catalyzing metabolic reactions, transporting molecules, or transmitting signals. These functions are determined by their chemical properties and physical interactions. This course covers the thermodynamic principles that lead to the structure, stability and interactions of proteins, and the theoretical basis of methodologies to study protein structure and function. The course provides hands-on experience with designing and performing experiments to investigate biophysical properties of proteins, and discussion on how these affect function. The course also covers computational tools to visualize the structure of proteins.