Graduate students interested in general principles of protein structure, dynamics and interactions, including but not limited to those doing research in protein structure determination, biophysics, dynamics, folding, higher-order association and related fields are strongly encouraged to enroll. Postdoctoral fellows in the same fields are very welcome to attend the lectures. The course emphasizes basic biophysical concepts. The lectures will be geared to both generalists and specialists.

Recent advances have shown how a variety of different protein conformational states, including folded, dynamic, disordered, amyloid, condensed liquid phases, gel, etc., can serve biological function or cause diseases. In response to our increased understanding of the biological importance of all these conformational states, this course has undergone three notable re-organizations in 2012, 2018, and 2020. In addition to our emphasis on the basic knowledge about folded and unfolded structures and coverage of recent advances, notably AlphaFold, in applying machine learning to folded protein structure prediction, we also provide necessary physical concepts for students to understand the multiplicity of conformational states available to proteins as well as the functional relevance of these states.