Carnegie Mellon University

Structural Biophysics

Course Number: 03871

The physical properties of biological macromolecules and the methods used to analyze their structure and function are discussed. Topics covered include: protein architecture and folding; nucleic acid structures and energetics; structure determination by X-ray crystallography and NMR; biological spectroscopy with emphasis on absorption, fluorescence, and NMR spectroscopies; other methods to characterize proteins and protein-ligand interactions, such as mass spectrometry, calorimetry, and surface plasmon resonance. Sufficient detail is given to allow the student to critically evaluate the current literature.

Academic Year: 2019-2020
Units: 12
Prerequisite(s): (03231 or 03232) and (09214 or 09345) and (21120 or 21122)