Abstract
Measuring and quantifying molecular interactions are increasing demands in the biological community in response to the explosion of information coming from the application of high-throughput methods to various problems. The opening of the field of biophysical measurements to new users creates the need for basic and advanced training courses covering fundamental knowledge of the instrumental methods, practice in setting-up and performing experiments, and data analysis and interpretation.
The aim of the course is to provide theoretical, practical and data analysis training in several modern methods for monitoring and quantifying molecular interactions - analytical ultracentrifugation, isothermal titration calorimetry, surface plasmon resonance, microscale thermophoresis, differential scanning fluorimetry and fluorescence spectroscopy techniques; coupled with several other techniques used for detecting molecular interactions and characterization of biomolecules, i.e. dynamic light and small-angle X-ray scattering, and structural mass spectrometry (cross-linking, H/D-exchange). The course provide brief theoretical introduction to the biophysical concepts underlying these methods, practicalities to prepare samples and set-up experiments, experimental demonstrations performed on state-of-art instruments.
Most importantly, the course will also provide theoretical introduction to basic and advanced data analysis methods that will be utilized within the practical half of the workshop including hands-on data analysis, using both tutorials with sample data and real data analysis. The course will put emphasis on the complementarity of these different methods in the field of macromolecular biology and on the combined analysis of datasets coming from different methods.
Practical data analysis will be demonstrated using the computational tools SEDFIT, SEDPHAT, GUSSI, EVILFIT and NITPIC.