1. Introduction to polymers:
2. Protein folding:
- Entropy and elasticity
- Interactions and the coil-globule transition
- Simple lattice models of protein folding
- Random Energy Model for freezing
3. DNA and RNA:
- Role of hydrophobicity and other interactions
- Secondary structure elements: alpha-helices & beta-sheets
- Classification of protein structures, and their evolution
- Dynamics of fast folding
- Watson-Crick pairing
- Energy/entropy considerations, and DNA melting
- RNA secondary structures
- Hartree equation for obtaining secondary structures without pseudo-knots
Thursday October 1
L7: (LM) Froces and Protein structure and foldingTuesday October 6
L8: (MK) Phases of polymers
Thursday October 8
L9: (MK) Compact polymers and REM
Thursday October 15
L10: (MK) DNA
Tuesday October 20
L11: (MK) RNA
Thursday October 22
L12: (HP) Rouse model