he following files represent an ongoing, but not very serious, attempt to write a textbook on structural biochemistry. They essentially capture the lecture material that I present in my Reed College course on that topic. I'm happy if they're of any value to you. Please let me know if you come across any typos and errors, and if you have suggestions for improving the content, I'm always interested.
The notes, roughly in chronological order of use.
- Info:Covalent structure and information transfer in biochemistry
- IMFs:Intermolecular forcess and the Hydrophobic Effect
- Lipids:Structure and properties of amphiphiles and their aggregates
- Fluorescence Spectroscopy
- Mass Spec:Modern primary structure determination
- Protein Secondary Structure:Where do the helices and sheets come from?
- Circular Dichroism: Spectroscopic tool for monitoring secondary structure
- Protein Tertiary Structure:The global conformation of proteins
- Protein Stability:Why proteins stay folded
- X-ray Crystallography:Why Protein Structure Determination
- Protein NMR:Another approach to structure determinatino
- Nucleic Acids:DNA and RNA structure
- Ligand Binding:Methods and algebra
- RNA Aptamers:Evolution of function
- DNA Binding Proteins:Specificity and recognition
- Triose phosphate isomerase:Application of general acid-base catalysis
- Ribozymes:Enzymes made of RNA
- Lewis acid catalysis:The use of metal-ion cofactors
- Decarboxylases:Looking at other cofactors
- Superoxide Dismutase:Redox catalysis
- Amino-acyl tRNA transferases:Specificity in catalysis
- The ribosome:Protein biosynthesis
