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Week 4Structure

Forces Shaping Proteins

This week covers: hydrogen bonds, van der waals, ionic interactions, hydrophobic effect, entropy vs enthalpy in folding

Week Progress

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Core Concepts
  • Hydrogen bonds, van der Waals, ionic interactions
  • Hydrophobic effect
  • Entropy vs enthalpy in folding

Week Content

Section
30-45 min

Molecular Forces

Understanding the physical forces that stabilize proteins

Required Readings

Dominant forces in protein folding (Dill, 1990)

Required
Read

Khan Academy Thermodynamics primer

Required
Read
Exercises

Coding Exercise

Compute Kyte–Doolittle hydrophobicity index for a sequence

Python
Start

Visualization

Color-map hydrophobic vs hydrophilic residues in PyMOL

Interactive
View