Only the course included in the list of compulsory ones for the previous degree.

The course is related and complementary to others in the "Biosistemi" group and within the Medical Physics CV.

Frontal lessons, slides, interaction with students. Notions and examples are combined.

• Introduction to structural biochemistry (8h=2 weeks)

1. Nature of forces within biomolecules 
2. Structure and functions of carbohydrates  
3. Structure and function of nucleic acids, transcription and translation
4. Structure and function of proteins, their classification
5. Structure and function of lipid membranes, and membrane proteins
6. Structure of prokaryote and eukaryote cells
7. Viruses, structure and replication

• Molecular optical spectroscopy (8h= 2 weeks)

1. Molecular electronic structure and molecular orbitals
2. UV absorption of proteins and nucleic acids
3. π-conjugated systems
4. Rhodopsin, retinal and vision
5. Linear and circular dichroism
6. Spontaneous emission and fluorescence
7. Non-radiative decay
8. Intersystem crossing and phosphorescence
9. Fluorescent Proteins: structure and spectroscopic properties
10. Absorption and scattering in tissues: near-infrared window
11. Non-linear processes: two photons adsorption and second harmonic generation (SHG) 

• Vibrational spectroscopy (4h = 1 week)

1. Molecular vibrations
2. IR spectroscopy (FTIR)
3. Raman vibrational spectroscopy
4. Vibrational spectra of proteins
5. Pre-resonant and resonant Raman spectroscopy
6. Imaging by Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS)

• Structural spectroscopy of biomolecules (4h=1 week)

1. Protein crystals and X-ray diffraction
2. Protein models from the electronic density map
3. Overview of cryo-electron microscopy
4. Principles of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
5. Brief illustration of multidimensional NMR
6. Browsing the PDB: visualisation of biomolecules

• Computational modeling of biomolecules (6h=1.5 weeks)

1. Overview of QM methods
2. Molecular mechanics
3. Molecular dynamics: time discretization and integrators of the Newton equation
4. Applications: protein dynamics and receptor-ligand interactions, protein folding
5. Overview of methods for protein-structure prediction and protein design

• Multi-scale simulations of bio-systems (6h, 1.5 weeks)

1. low-resolution models and multi-scale combinations
2. Go and network models of biomolecules
3. Continuum and mechanistic models of biopolymers and membranes
4. implicit solvent models and surface representations, docking.

Basic biochemistry and biophysics text will be suggested during the first lessons. additional material will be uploaded on the web sites of the course

The students can always contact the teachers to have information on the classes.

Material is uploaded on the teams or elearning web site as the lessons proceed.

The final exam is oral. Students have two options, among which the student can freely choose 1. they are interviewed directly on the whole program of the course or 2. Students can focus on a specific topic, by (autonomously or with the teacher help) searching bibliography on it. In that case, the exam starts with the oral presentation of the topic (5-10 mins), and then the candidate is interviewed on other topics of the course.