Week 1Foundation

Proteins as Biological Machines

This week covers: central dogma: dna → rna → protein, 20 amino acids: chemical properties & classifications, protein folding: why structure = function

Week Progress

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Core Concepts

Central Dogma: DNA → RNA → Protein
20 amino acids: chemical properties & classifications
Protein folding: why structure = function

Week Content

Section

30-45 min

Central Dogma Overview

Understanding the flow of genetic information from DNA to proteins

Start

Section

30-45 min

Protein Structure Basics

Introduction to protein folding and structure-function relationships

Start

Required Readings

Molecular Biology of the Cell, Ch. 4: Proteins

Required

Read

Introduction to Protein Structure (NCBI primer)

Required

Read

Exercises

Coding Exercise

Python script to compute amino acid frequencies from FASTA

Python

Start

Visualization

Explore insulin (PDB: 4INS) with Mol* Viewer

Interactive

View

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