Bioinformatics and Molecular Modeling

The purpose of this course is that participants gain knowledge on and understand:
- the prediction of the principal physicochemical and structural properties of pharmacological targets and of biotechnological drugs and products;
- the accuracy of in silico approaches used in the development of biotechnological drugs and products;
- the computational strategies for modelling targets, responsible for biological activity, simulating their interaction with biotechnological drugs and their molecular recognition mechanisms at an atomistic level;
methods to predict and validate the mechanism of action of biotechnological drugs and products, with particular attention to a better rational design of experiments on animal models, according to the 3Rs principle.

At the end of the course, the student is expected to know:
- the application of the computational methods used in biotechnological research;
to critically evaluate:
- the pros and cons of in silico prediction approaches used for developing biotechnological drugs and products;
to gain:
- the bases for deeply understanding computational methods and results described in scientific literature;
to obtain:
a multifaceted bioinformatics knowledgebase, useful for further student's personal study of this topic.