This module is focussed on one of most cutting-edge frontiers of science, Molecular Machines. The curriculum encompasses the key players that enable the flow of biological information and its delivery in living systems: nucleic acid polymerases, ribosomes, and chaperonins. It furthermore includes machines that provide and direct the infrastructure of the cell, from chromosome segregation, nuclear pore complexes, to secretion- and conjugation systems.

Biological research questions (and how to obtain answers to them!) are taught side by side with technical innovations from a broad range of disciplines including structural and molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics, micro- and systems biology. Top scientists from ISMB will teaching their own research highlights; in addition, we have recruited leaders in their field from the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR), the Francis Crick Institute to provide guest lectures.

The aims of the module are to develop the basic theory and practical understanding derived from the previous year into a state-of-the-art knowledge of key issues in protein and nucleic acid structure and function.

After taking this module you should have an advanced understanding of biomolecular mechanisms and be familiar with a range of principles and methods in structural and molecular biology, biochemstry and biophysics including:

how high resolution structures aid in an understanding of protein function of selected enzymes
	how biophysical and biochemical proximity probing inform about multiprotein complex architecture
	the principles of protein-nucleic acid interactions
	the determinants of protein folding and how it can be aided by chaperonins
Indicative lecture list:

1 DNA topology one molecule at a time

2 Chromatin dynamics and histone modifications

3 Structural biology of DNA polymerase

4 Theory and application of crystallography

5 RNA polymerases, gatekeeper of the genome

6 Mechanisms of transcription initiation and elongation

7 Structure and function of Nuclear Pore Complex

8 Visualising single molecule transport

9 Oxidative stress regulation of RNAPIII transcription

10 Small and microRNAs - regulation by basepairing

11 Coupling of transcription and translation

12 Noncoding RNAs interacting with proteins

13 Ribosomes and mechanisms of translation

14 Structural dynamics of the nascent polypeptide chain

15 Molecular chaperones and protein quality control

16 Chaperonin mechanisms studied by Cryo-EM

17 Protein folding in vitro and in vivo

18 Protein misfolding and disease

19 Cytoskeleton, microtubules and kinesins

20 Walking molecules: Dynein

21 Conjugation: Mechanisms of Type IV secretion

22 Killing: Mechanisms of Type VI secretion