Introduction

Exercises 1 and 2

Exercises 1 and 2 are wet/X-ray lab practicals. In exercise 1 you will learn protein crystallization, by working with real protein in a real protein crystallization research laboratory. In exercise 2 you will use stat-of-the-art X-ray diffraction equipment to study your protein crystals. Again, this will be a real-life research laboratory with very rigorous safety regulations. You will learn a lot (also about working safely in scientific research laboratories!) but you will be required to follow the instructuons from your tutors very closely!

Exercises 3-5

Exercises 3-5 are computer practicals. In each of them you will be given an assignment, on which you will be working at a computer workstation, typically using various resources available on the Internet, as well as local resources/programs/data. In each of those exercises, you will be guided by a detailed write-up that can be reached on our website by clicking the exercise number. Thus you will need to organize your work by opening several browser windows on your screen:

• a window with the text of the exercise
• a window with an internet resource, to which you will be pointed by the exercise write-up (sometimes more than one window like that will have to be opened)
• a window where you will be performing various tasks connected with the exercise, e.g. pasting and editing protein sequences
• a text editor window in which you will be jotting notes and pasting the most important results of your work; the text file with those notes will be the basis for the evaluation of your work at the end of this practical class

Problem?

Remember: if there are problems or you are not sure if you understand the exercise correctly - always ask your tutor!

Your Report

After each exercise, you will be required to prepare a written Report and email it to your tutor before the date of the following practical.

We look forward to working with you on this exciting and rewarding course, which will give you a lot of new information and skills in various aspects of chemistry, especially in the areas where chemical knowledge is essential for our understanding of biological macromolecules.

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Mariusz Jaskolski