CHEM 325 Computational Protein Design and Engineering

Students in this course will explore and participate in development of protein-based therapeutics and biotools through hands-on computational protein design and engineering. This course will be an interactive lecture/lab that takes a deep dive into using computational chemistry to design protein-based therapeutic interventions, to computationally engineer biotools that could be used to study biological systems, to develop models of proteins structures that could advance our understanding of diseases, and to develop biocatalysts which have applications in biopharmaceuticals or industry. Students will learn relevant skills and tools used in protein design and biomolecular engineering such as advanced characterization of protein structure, protein-protein docking, homology modeling, computational biochemistry, bioinformatics methodologies, and molecular dynamics. No computational experience is required for this course. This course is a course based undergraduate research experience (CURE) and can be used to develop or expand students’ exposure to research environments, garner research experience for preparation and matriculation into graduate programs and/or professional health programs.