What do proteins, DNA, and RNA look like? Where do these molecules fit in your body and how do they work? This seminar will introduce you to the basics of structural biology using human anatomy, physiology, and disease as themes.
The focus of the Spring Semester 2023Molecular View of Human Anatomy course will be to understand the structures and functions of proteins that play key roles in Cancer Biology. Student learning and discussions will focus on molecular mechanisms of causes and treatments of human cancers. During the first half of the semester, students will learn the fundamentals of structural biology -how proteins, DNA, and RNA are shaped and how their three-dimensional structures are experimentally determined. They will be introduced to specific enzymes, receptors, and signaling molecules (such as Kinases and Phosphatases) that perform important functions and are impacted in cancers. Students will learn to appreciate how knowledge about the structures of relevant molecules can play an important role in understanding their biological functions and in turn enable validation of drug targets. Through the second half of the seminar, students will conduct supervised research on contemporary ideas concerning the precise molecular mechanism of action of pharmacologic agents currently used to treat human cancers.
Throughout the semester, students will learn to use scientific data resources (including the Protein Data Bank, PubMed, UniProt, The Cancer Genome Atlas, cBioPortal), critically read scientific articles, identify molecules related to assigned topics, analyze them in detail, and write scholarly articles about them. Students will have the opportunity to get their articles reviewed by experts in the field and publish them on an online educational resource.
All class related material will be made available online. Students are strongly encouraged to bring in their own laptops to class.
The seminar has no pre-requisites; science and non-science majors are encouraged to enroll. Non-science majors may have to read, work with their peers and/or instructors to learn some scientific vocabulary. The seminar requires research-based learning (including reading the scientific literature, exploring molecular structures from public databases, analyzing and integrating information from different sources) and familiarizes students with a structural view of biology at the atomic level. Student learning will be evaluated on the bases of two written reports and two oral presentations related to structural aspects of the course them plus participation in class discussions/activities.
About Professor Dutta
Shuchismita Dutta, Ph.D. is a structural biologist with training in X-ray crystallography and bioinformatics. She is an Associate Research Professor in the Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine at Rutgers, the Scientific Educational Development Lead at the RCSB Protein Data Bank, and a Member of the Cancer Institute of NJ. She has been teaching a wide range of audiences about visualization of structural data for over 15 years. Dutta has extensive experience with curating and using structural data and has been involved in research and management of several data remediation projects organized by the worldwide PDB. About 14 years ago she initiated the honors seminar titled Molecular View of Human Anatomy. She has also collaborated with educators, scientists and clinicians to develop curricular modules for learning about biological molecules in general, and also molecules related to specific global health topics (such as HIV/AIDS, Diabetes, and Antimicrobial resistance, COVID-19). Dutta has authored many scholarly and scientific articles and continues to train a wide range of audiences in promoting molecular structural view of biology and medicine.
About Professor Burley
Stephen K. Burley, M.D., D.Phil.is an expert in structural biology, proteomics, bioinformatics, structure/fragment-based drug discovery, and clinical medicine/oncology. He is the Founding Director of the Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He currently serves as University Professor and Henry Rutgers Chair; Director, RCSB Protein Data Bank; and is a Member of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. From 2008 to 2012, Burley was a Distinguished Lilly Research Scholar in Lilly Research Laboratories. Prior to joining Lilly, Burley served as the Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of SGX Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company that was acquired by Lilly in 2008. Until 2002, Burley was the Richard M. and Isabel P. Furlaud Professor at The Rockefeller University, and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Burley has authored/coauthored more than 250 scholarly scientific articles. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the New York Academy of Sciences.