Principles of Protein Structure. Birkbeck, University of London
The twenty-first century has been described as 'the century of biology', with advances in molecular biology already making an important contribution to enormous gains in health and quality of life over much of the world. And proteins are fundamental to all biology. Structural biology is the science of how the shapes of molecules such as proteins affect their function, and our understanding of it has contributed to the design of drugs against devastating diseases including cancer and AIDS. This programme explores the structures of proteins at different levels, before applying this knowledge to an understanding of their function in health and disease.