Unit information: 3D Protein Structure in 2020/21

Unit name	3D Protein Structure
Unit code	BIOLM0027
Credit points	10
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Van der Kamp
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	Scientific programming, Statistics and R.
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Biological Sciences
Faculty	Faculty of Life Sciences

Description including Unit Aims

This unit will introduce students to the practice of applying bioinformatics approaches to structural biology-based problems. These include the design of analyses and use of computational tools to analyse biological structural data. The students will have the opportunity to plan, develop and implement their own analyses to answer a wide variety of biological questions using structural biology databases.

The aim of this unit will be to:

1. Provide students with a detailed understanding of the concepts behind designing and performing structural analyses.
2. Provide students with the skills required to use and interact with the types of software required to perform such analyses.

Intended Learning Outcomes

The Learning Outcomes (LOs) for this unit are:

A: Knowledge and Understanding:

1. to understand the theory, rationale and limitations of structural biology experiments and data.
2. to develop knowledge on the different data types from different structural biology experiments including molecular modelling and how these data can be manipulated and exploited.
3. to appreciate the differences and limitations of extrapolated and predicted structures from experimentally derived structures.

B: Intellectual Skills/Attributes:

1. to design structural comparisons and analyses to address given hypotheses.
2. to identify and deploy computational analysis methods with appropriate parameters to extract usable results from structural data and databases
3. ability to perform simple structure predictions based on existing database information.

C: Other Skills /Attributes (Practical/Professional/Transferable):

An approach and mindset which will enable students to:

1. Design and analyse robust experiments in areas outside of structural biology
2. Integrate new software and methods into their future work whilst retaining overall integrity of and confidence in their analyses and findings.

Teaching Information

The unit will be delivered through a mixture of short lectures followed by individual exercises with computers. Blackboard will be used to engage students with the unit content.

Assessment Information

A summative computer assessment will consist of a final computer task integrating all the learning objectives.

Reading and References

Depending on the topic, references are chosen from the current primary literature by students.