Molecular Biophysics for the Life Sciences

Dr. Norma M. Allewell is Professor of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics and Affiliate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Maryland, where she served as Dean of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences for a decade. Her research focuses on protein structure, function and dynamics, and metabolic regulatory mechanisms and diseases. Dr. Linda Narhi is a Scientific Executive Director in the Product Attribute Science Group at Amgen, where her responsibilities include solution stability assessment of all protein-based therapeutic candidates, and developing and implementing predictive assays for protein stability to process, storage, and delivery conditions. Dr. Ivan Rayment is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he holds the Michael G. Rossmann Professorship in Biochemistry. He has a wide range of interests in structural biology and has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the structural basis of motility, enzyme evolution, cobalamin biosynthesis, and transposition.

Introduction: Molecular Biophysics and the Life Sciences.- Structural, Physical, and Chemical Principles.- Part I. The Experimental Tools of Molecular Biophysics.- Optical Spectroscopic Methods for the Analysis of Biological Macromolecules.- Diffraction and Scattering of X-Rays and Neutrons.- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.- Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.- Mass Spectrometry.- Single Molecule Methods.- Part II. Biological Macromolecules as Molecular Machines: Three Examples.- Helicase Unwinding at the Replication Fork.- Rotary Motor ATPases.- Biophysical approaches to understanding the action of myosin as a molecular machine.- Part III. Future Prospects.- Future Prospects.