CHEM 470 Computational Biochemistry

MA 490 Bioinformatics  

Course meeting time: 6th hour, MTRF in G220. Please bring your laptops to class.

Mark Brandt, Chemistry & Biochemistry Department
Yosi Shibberu, Mathematics Department
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
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Biochemistry is a rich source of important computational problems that should be of interest to mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers. The dramatic drop in the cost of sequencing DNA as well as progress in several structural genomics initiatives have created many new and exciting opportunities.

Cost of sequencing a human genome
Data from Wetterstrand KA. DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program (GSP) Available at: www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts. Accessed Sept 13, 2019.
MA 490 Bioinformatics / CHEM 470 Computational Biochemistry is an interdisciplinary course that will be team taught by Professors Brandt and Shibberu. The course will cover  topics from:
  • sequence bioinformatics
  • structural bioinformatics
  • molecular interactions and drug design.
The theme running throughout the course will be the molecular basis of disease. We will use mathematical analysis and computational algorithms using insulin as a model system.
The prerequisite for the course is MA 212 Mat Alg Sys DE. All the concepts needed from biochemistry will be introduced during the course.


Rotating Insulin
Structure of the human insulin monomer (from PDB ID 1MSO). Insulin is an important signalling molecule in many species. The common disorder diabetes mellitus is caused by either absence of or lack of response to insulin


Sequence_logo_example
Insulin family sequence logo, showing the relative likelihood of different amino acids at different places in the sequence. The sequence logo was constructed using partial sequences from human, rabbit, horse, sheep, pig, chicken, alligator, and cod insulin proteins.


Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology