Chemistry and Cellular Biochemistry

The course is organized in several interconnected topics:
1) Biocatalysis
2) Oxygen Chemistry in Biology
3) Membrane Biochemistry (membranes lipids and rafts, membrane proteins, vesicular trafficking)
4) Membrane - Virus interaction: biochemistry of infection, membrane fusion, membrane budding
5) New methods to study macromolecular complexes and high resolution cell biology imaging.
6) Biochemistry of extracellular matrix.

Expected competences acquired by the students:
- expertise in structural analysis of an active site
- basics in chemical mechanism occurring in enzymes (as a function of the different types of cofactors)
- characterization of cofactors/active site by biophysical methods
- electron transfer in biology
All these competences are preliminary to future drug design expertise and approaches that will be viewed more deeply in other modules of the master.
- Chemistry and reactivity of O2 in biology (molecular basis of oxidative stress, role in pathology (cancer, etc..); detoxification, ....
- Biochemistry of lipids, lipids rafts, membrane protein biochemistry (receptors, transporters, channels), basis in pharmacology of membrane proteins.
- Biosynthesis and biology of glycosaminoglycans.
- Cell biology of mb : mb budding, fusion, vesicular trafficking.