Close
Description
This module is focussed on one of most cutting-edge frontiers of science, Molecular Machines. The curriculum encompasses the key players that enable the flow of biological information and its delivery in living systems: nucleic acid polymerases, ribosomes, and chaperonins. It furthermore includes machines that provide and direct the infrastructure of the cell, from nuclear pore complexes to secretion- and conjugation systems.
Biological research questions (and how to obtain answers to them!) are taught side by side with technical innovations from a broad range of disciplines including structural and molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics, micro- and systems biology. Leading researchers from ISMB will teaching their own research highlights; in addition, we have recruited experts from Birkbeck College and the Francis Crick Institute to provide guest lectures.
The aims of the module are to develop the basic theory and practical understanding derived from the previous year into a state-of-the-art knowledge of key issues in protein and nucleic acid structure and function. The assessments include cutting edge primary data analysis exercise, familiarising the students with important tools of our trade, including AI-led structural homology modelling using AlphaFold.
After taking this module you should have an advanced understanding of biomolecular mechanisms and be familiar with a range of principles and methods in structural and molecular biology, biochemstry and biophysics including:
- how high resolution structures solved by cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography aid in an understanding of protein function of selected enzymes
- how biophysical and biochemical proximity probing inform about multiprotein complex architecture
- the principles of protein-nucleic acid interactions
- the determinants of protein folding and how it can be aided by chaperonins
Indicative lecture list:
- DNA topology one molecule at a time
- Chromatin dynamics and histone modifications
- Structural biology of DNA polymerase
- Theory and application of crystallography
- RNA polymerases, gatekeeper of the genome
- Mechanisms of transcription initiation and elongation
- Structure and function of Nuclear Pore Complex
- Visualising single molecule transport
- Oxidative stress regulation of RNAPIII transcription
- Small and microRNAs - regulation by basepairing
- Coupling of transcription and translation
- Noncoding RNAs interacting with proteins
- Ribosomes and mechanisms of translation
- Structural dynamics of the nascent polypeptide chain
- Molecular chaperones and protein quality control
- Chaperonin mechanisms studied by Cryo-EM
- Protein folding in vitro and in vivo
- Protein misfolding and disease
- Conjugation: Mechanisms of Type IV secretion
- Killing: Mechanisms of Type VI secretion
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
听