EMBO Practical Course: Computational structural biology - from data to structure to function

Date:

  Monday 16 April 2012

Application opens: 

Sunday 01 January 2012

Application deadline: 

Friday 24 February 2012

Contact: 

Frank O’Donnell

Registration closed

Overview

Is it right for me?

This course will teach computational aspects of protein structure determination, validation and analysis. Students will learn to critically examine and validate data from the Protein Data Bank and use a variety of analysis tools to identify similarities that can help identify function. The course will also provide an introductory session to homology modelling for use with proteins less amenable to structure determination. Finally, the importance of protein structure to drug development will be illustrated with a day focussing on protein interactions, small molecules, chemoinformatics and docking. The course is aimed at PhD students and post-docs working on the collection and analysis of protein structure data. The goal is to provide them with insight into the protein structure determination process, how to critically assess the quality of data from models and also provide expertise in the analysis of protein structure data with a view to predicting protein function.

What will I learn and what will it cover?

  • Background to structural biology and the techniques involved: X-ray crystallography, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Electron Microscopy and Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)
  • Experience in building a model from X-ray diffraction data, comparing and integrating different types of structural data, and the differences in interpretation.
  • Deposition and retrieval of data to/from the PDB, validating structures, and how proteins can be classified into structural families and folds (specifically focusing on the CATH and Pfam databases).
  • Comparing folds and multimeric assemblies, understanding the differences when dealing with membrane proteins
  • Homology modelling of proteins that are difficult to determine experimentally.
  • Analysis of protein structures, identifying what can and cannot be inferred and how to use the various tools.
  • Predicting the function of proteins from structural data.
  • Importance of protein structure and small molecule data in the development of drugs.

Additional information

Scientific Committee

  • Gerard Kleywegt (EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, UK)
  • Victor Lamzin (EMBL Hamburg, Germany)
  • Christine Orengo (University College London, UK)
  • Gert Vriend (CMBI, NCMLS, Nijmegen, Netherlands)

Programme

Draft Programme - (Subject to change)

Time Topic Speaker
Day 1 - Monday 16 April 2012- Introduction, The wwPDB, Structure Determination Techniques, Structure validation
09:00 - 09:30 Welcome and Introduction  
09:30 - 10:30 Participant introductions and expectations  
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break  
11:00 - 11:45 Background to protein structure and its determination Victor Lamzin
11:45 - 12:30 Introduction to the wwPDB and the PDBe Gerard Kleywegt
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch  
13:30 - 14:30 SAXS data Maxim Petoukhov
14:30 - 15:30 NMR data Aleksandras Gutmanas
15:30 - 16:00 Coffee break  
16:00 - 17:00 EM(DB) data Ardan Patwardhan
17:00 - 18:30 Model Validation Gerard Kleywegt, Sanchayita Sen
18:30 - 18:45 Wrap up session with questions All Trainers
19:30 - Evening dinner at restaurant  
Day 2 - Tuesday 17 April 2012 - X-ray crystallography, Combining data from different techniques
9:00 - 10:30 Data Collection and model building Victor Lamzin, Tim Wiegels and Santosh Panjikar
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break  
11:00 - 13:00 Model building using AutoRickshaw, ARP/wARP, and other software Victor Lamzin, Tim Wiegels and Santosh Panjikar
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch and Poster Session 1  
14:30 - 15:30 Structure and function characterisation of macromolecular assemblies by a combination of experimental data, bioinformatics, and modelling techniques TBC
15:30 - 16:30 Combining biochemical approaches, proteomics and cryo-electron microscopy to study the structure and function of large macromolecular assemblies TBC
16:30 - 16:45 Coffee break  
16:45 - 18:15 Tools for low resolution model-building (including maps from EM) and for use in structure-based drug design TBC
18:15 - 18:45 Open panel discussion and question session  
19:30 - Evening dinner at Wellcome Trust restaurant  
Day 3 - Wednesday 18 April 2012 - Small molecules, drug discovery and chemoinformatics
09:00 - 10:30 Chemistry in the PDBe using PDBeChem Gaurav Sahni
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break  
11:00 - 12:00 Drug discovery and ChEMBL TBC
12:00 - 13:30 Small Molecule Identification Victor Lamzin, Tim Wiegels
13:30 - 14:15 Lunch  
14:15 - 16:00 Small molecule docking using GOLD Gary Battle
16:00 - Group Social event  
20:00 - Formal dinner at a Cambridge college  
Day 4 - Thursday 19 April 2012 - Protein classification and structure analysis (folds and assemblies), membrane proteins and homology modelling
09:00 - 11:00 Protein Folds and Families, CATH, SCOP and Pfam Christine Orengo
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee Break  
11:30 - 13:00 Quaternary structure and fold comparison - PDBeFold/PDBePisa Gaurav Sahni
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch and Poster Session 2  
14:30 - 15:30 Membrane protein structure data TBC
15:30 - 16:00 Homology Modelling (talk) Gert Vriend
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break  
16:30 - 18:00 Homology Modelling (practical) Gert Vriend
18:00 - 18:30 Open panel discussion and question session: “Small molecules, drug discovery, chemoinformatics, docking, folds, families, assemblies, membrane proteins and homology modelling" All Trainers
19:30 - Evening dinner at restaurant  
Day 5 - Friday 18 April 2012 - Interactions, Motifs, Patterns, and Function Prediction
09:00 - 11:00 Protein protein interactions and motifs TBC
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break  
11:30 - 13:00 Structural Motifs - PDBeMotif Sanchayita Sen
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch  
14:00 - 15:30 Sequence and structure-based patterns - functional annotation and misclassification TBC
15:30 - 16:00 Coffee break  
16:00 - 17:30 Protein function prediction James Watson
17:30 - 18:00 Course closing comments and feedback session  
18:00 - Departures  

 

Course Materials: Course_materials.zip