Aims

1. To introduce the principles of protein structure to advanced students with at least three years of higher education and at least 'A' level chemistry or equivalent.
2. To be a course acceptable as part of a graduate studies programme in chemical or biological sciences.
3. To promote an awareness of the Internet as a global information resource for molecular biology, and as a teaching medium.

Objectives

At the end of the course, students should

1. Understand the basic chemical and physical properties of the amino acids.
2. Understand the principles of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary protein structure.
3. Be aware, on a basic level, of how the structure of a protein can influence its interaction with other biomolecules.
4. Be familiar with the major databases of protein sequence and structure and the tools available to query them.
5. Those students who take the project should also able to write simple HTML well enough to produce a Web resource describing an aspect of protein structure.