Physical Biochemistry

The module seeks to establish an understanding of the fundamental physical laws that biochemical reactions and processes. Why does a reaction go forward? How much substrate is left x seconds after starting the reaction? How does pH influence enzyme-catalysed reactions and how does the rate of turnover relate to concentration of enzyme and availability of substrate? These are some of the questions examined in this module.

By the end of the module you should be able to:

• Understand how pH affects ionisations states of ionisable groups in proteins and, as a consequence, how subtle changes in pH can affect enzyme activity.
• Understand how thermodynamics and kinetics allow a quantitative description of biochemical processes.
• Master a basic set of mathematical tools to predict biochemical equilibria; to describe the time-dependence of (enzyme-catalysed) chemical reactions; and to quantify the relationship between substrate concentration(s) and reaction rates in enzyme-catalysed reactions.
• Relate molecular and structural features of a selected set of enzymes to the mechanism of rate enhancement.
• Understand how knowledge of evolutionary relationships between proteins provides insights into the conservation of structure and molecular mechanism of protein function.
• Know and understand a simple set of experimental techniques to study enzymes, their substrates and reactions they catalyse.
• Know and understand a simple set of experimental techniques to study enzymes, their substrates and reactions they catalyse.