BCMB30001: Protein Structure and Function

5% computer tutorial worksheet, 20% assignment, 2x 10% MSTs, 55% final exam

Let me first say that the review given by vox nihili is pretty good already. I write this review just because there have been slight changes in the course in terms of who's lecturing and the assessment. As the previous review pointed out, each module has its own seperate distinct elements that don't connect with each other too well. Having gone through functional genomics, you'd think that this subject would be manageable but this subject is a beast on its own. The content of each lecture is pretty hard to grasp so don't feel too sad if you didn't understand it when you left the lecture. In fact, don't be too sad if you don't even attend the lectures. When I attended the lectures in week 10, there were less than 10 students coming in a class of about 100. This subject expands on the content covered in the 1st few weeks of 2nd yr biochem covered by Paul (in 1st sem) and Terry (in 2nd Sem). This includes the primary, secondary, tertiary structures of proteins and all the beta hairpins and folding principles covered. It's a tough subject and I feel it's necessary to go through each lecturer just as vox nihili has. However, you do get a sense of special knowledge as mentioned and it's nice to see the various techniques used to study proteins. It's also noteworthy that I felt knowledge of chemistry (Equilibrium including Gibbs and kinetics principles) and a bit of physics helped in doing this subject.

Paul - So nothing has really changed much from what the previous reviewer has stated. Paul is an NMR expert and it can be pretty hard to understand the principles of NMR. However that's okay. My advice is to not get too bogged down by the principles but focus more on how to interpret the results of NMR data. In my opinion, it felt Paul was a bit too intellectual in his lectures and it was hard to really grasp what he was saying. Sometimes, you should really just read his slides first and then think about what he's saying. It also helps if you try and find the actual published paper he uses in lectures to understand the results. My final advice to those doing this subject is NMR cannot determine structure by itself. You need some structure template to work with in order to gain information about the structure dynamics. This section was hard to follow but it's amazing what we can really do to understand proteins.

Mike - Most of my friends found that he was pretty dry to listen to. His focus was mainly on structures found by X-ray crystallography and SAXs as well as principles on enzymes. A bit of physics would be useful as he goes through constructive and destructive interference using X-rays on proteins. Perhaps what makes Mike's content hard is that the 3 topics mentioned above don't have much link with one another making it hard to review.

Danny - Danny focuses mainly on folding principles and how we can observe them through FRET and stopped flow experiments. If you've went through molecular analysis of cell function, you'll see that this is an expansion of the content. As mentioned, Danny is more focused on seeing whether you can apply these concepts into biological experiments which is great. He wants you to apply knowledge and not simply regurgitate. In doing his exam questions, they feel like questions that you would see in the lab subject. He's one of the nicest lectures out of all of them and you can tell that he does his best in giving you the best learning experience.

Isabelle - Unfortunately, this was the year Terry was replaced. Now this is good and bad. This was good because we wouldn't have to go through his really difficult exam questions and this was bad because we didn't get to see his fun lectures. Isabelle is an expert in cryo-EM and it makes sense to include her because this is one of the leading technologies now used to visualise proteins. However, what makes her lectures poor, and I have nothing against it, is that her french accent was strong and made the lectures difficult to follow. BUT! You can tell from her lecturing style that she tries her best to educate. This is shown by how detailed her slides are and everytime the lectures ended early, she would always give time to go through her review questions and provide answers to them. While I didn't attend her tutorial (and i wish I did), she apparently used Legos in order to try and build structures of proteins and I really wish I came for that! Her content went focused on cryo-EM, structures of motor proteins like dynein and kinesin as well as signalling proteins (huge advantage if u did BCMB30004).

Gavin - Now Gavin is apparently one of the leading experts in Mass Spectrometry in Australia. Unfortunately, his lectures were not great. The flow of his lectures were so poorly connected making it hard to follow. In addition, if you were watching him on lecture capture, he doesn't use the pointer as with other lecturers making it difficult to follow. The saving grace of Gavin is that his questions are basically the same every year so there is really no surprise when you do his questions in the exam.

Now each lecturer has their flaws but in my opinion, when you sit down and stop complaining, you'll see that the techniques used to study proteins are pretty amazing. It highlights how much we've really progressed with biochemistry and the papers each lecturer have highlighted have shown us what we've been able to determine. And it's pretty cool. While the content of this subject is hard to grasp, I think it's so much better than what you've learnt in functional genomics. It's a special knowledge that informs you what have we done to understand biology and it is really the foundations of drug design.

Tutorials- Honestly, I felt like these were sort of a waste of time and didn't attend most of them. Perhaps the most necessary tutorial to attend was the PyMol tutorial because it gives you the necessary skills necessary for the assignments. The tutorials given by Paul were pretty helpful in getting your mind thinking about how NMR works and what questions to expect. Danny does hold an interactive session on a paper where you'll input answers on your phone. I honestly wish the tutorials would switch to this direction. If I'm not wrong, some tutorials did involve people working in groups (not too sure) and it may be helpful for those who enjoy that.