When you registered for this Course you read through the preparatory
material. There, in addition to setting out a learning contract, we made
it clear that in lieu of fees we were expecting a contribution in kind.
Several individuals have already weighed in, but the time has now come for
the others to opt for a project of their own.
This may take the form of a short essay, possibly illustrated, or a set
of links or pages. It doesn't have to be astonishingly grand or
wonderful. A modest, but well-thought out piece is all that's
required. We will mount it on the server at Birkbeck if you don't have
access to one locally.
We list below a number of topics that you might wish to adopt as the
theme of your project, and I would hope that others involved in the
Course would toss in a few more ideas. The only constraint is that it
should relate in some way to the Principles of Protein Structure, or to
some element of the Course material.
Here then are some ideas to set you thinking :-
What about -
- Disulphides and protein stability
- Amino Acid Composition Differences between Species
- AA composition differences between cytosolic and extracellular
proteins
- AA Composition variations between classes of Protein Folds
- Why Proline is special
- The Role(s) of Metal(s)s in Proteins
- The Greek Key
- Why Glycine is special
- Phosphorylation
- Mutations in Human Diseases
- Enzyme Activation
- Why Cysteine is special
- Beta-barrels
- Buried Hydrogen Bonds
- A Review of Types of Graphical Representation of Protein Structures
- Variations on the Ramachandran Plot
- Protein Folding
- The Inverse Protein Folding Problem
- Secondary Structure Prediction
- The Hydrophobic Effect (and its importance)
- The Poly-proline helix
- A Brief Outline of Protein Structure Determination (NMR or X-ray)
- Beta-bulges
- Why Random Coil is Not Random
- Conformational Changes in Proteins
- Why Beta Sheets Twist
- Classes of Membrane Proteins
- Helical Bundles
- Electrostatics in Proteins
- The Helix Macro-Dipole
- Water In and Around Proteins
- The role of the Signal Peptide
- Sugar Decoration (glycosylation
- What Proteins DO (a gross classification)
- Proteolysis
- Symmetry in Protein Association
- Proteins in Viruses
- The Beta Propeller
When you settle on a choice, it's a good idea to post a message to the
vsns-pps-families list, to `stake your claim', although we encourage
people to work together on projects if they wish.