Information for foreign students


UNIWERSITY OF WARSAW

1 Pasteura Str., 02-093 Warsaw, Poland, phone: +48 (0)22 822 02 11

37


Subject

Structure of Polymers and Biopolymers


No / course unit code


Semester

1M

Type of course

Lecture


Teaching hours
 per semester    per week

30      2

ECTS credits

2


Lecturer:

Prof. dr. hab. Andrzej Koliński
Room: 144     Phone extn.: 320     email: kolinski@chem.uw.edu.pl

Teaching Division:

Theoretical Chemistry and Crystallography

Educational and
professional goals:

Learning the basics of conformational statistics of polymers. Learning thermodynamics and dynamics of macromolecules in solutions and polymer melts. Learning structure and assembly mechanisms of biopolymers.

Course description:

Synthetic and natural polymers. Isomeric properties of polymers. Statistics of a single chain molecule. Coil-globule transition for flexible chain polymers. Effects of conformational stiffness. Structural ordering in polymer liquids and polymer crystallization. Dynamics of a single chain molecule in solution - the Rouse model. Dynamics of polymer chains in concentrated solutions or melts - unusual diffusion of polymers in macromolecular systems. Reptation theory and other theories of polymer dynamics. Polypeptides and proteins. Conformational analysis. Helical structures. Secondary and tertiary structure of proteins. Molecular interactions in proteins - interactions stabilizing the three dimensional structure, hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic effects. Increasing thermal stability of proteins. Protein engineering. Sequence-structure-function, evolutionary relationships. Reversible denaturation of proteins - thermodynamics and dynamics of the process. DNA, RNA and other biopolymers. DNA and chromatin structure. Secondary and tertiary structure of RNA. Interactions between biomacromolecules. Protein assemblies. Chaperons. Protein-DNA interactions. Structure of simple viruses.

Required background:

Basic course in physical chemistry and statistical thermodynamics. Elements of organic chemistry and biochemistry.

Form of assessment:


Exam.

Remarks:

Suggested for perspective students of Laboratory of Theory of Biopolymers.




Supervisor: Jadwiga Skupinska

Webmaster: Adam Myslinski