Postgraduate Course: Practical Skills in Biochemistry B (BILG11015)
Course Outline
| School | School of Biological Sciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course provides thorough training in enhanced practical skills required for employment as a biochemical scientist. The course will cover hands-on training and experience in using a range of experimental techniques, including recombinant protein purification, enzyme activity assays and biophysical characterisation. |
| Course description |
Students will be taught the experience of working in a real-world laboratory environment, with a known practical target to achieve over the course of 10 weeks, but with no step-by-step protocols provided. Students will need to read recommended research papers, and do further reading, and will learn how to extract methods from papers in order to write their own protocols based on the equipment and materials available, and that are achievable within the timetabled hours.
Students will be taught the required practical skills and data-analysis by expert practitioners. They will be provided with the intermediate goals that they are required to achieve, some preliminary information and recommended reading and technical tips, but then have to work together in small groups to plan how to achieve the goals with the equipment and reagents provided, write the protocols, and to learn how to generate and analyse their results.
This will involve:
-a range of chromatographic techniques to purify and assess a known enzyme
-a straightforward enzyme assay to monitor activity
-several complementary biochemical techniques to characterise the purified enzyme, some of which will be carried out in research labs and facilities within SBS and the School of Chemistry.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 16 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 7,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 33,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
156 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% Coursework comprising three in-course assessments:
Practical skills and laboratory books are assessed weekly (20%)
Design of an experimental strategy for biophysical and activity characterisation of purified protein (30%)
A report, in the form, of a paper, of all experiments performed (50%) |
| Feedback |
Individual or group verbal feedback in class, written comments in lab book.
Individual written feedback on written assessments plus class-level verbal feedback on first written assessment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Apply, or understand how to apply, a range of chromatographic techniques to purify a protein and then characterise it by a range of complementary techniques.
- Design and analyse a straightforward enzyme assay.
- Identify the techniques required and design an appropriate strategy for the biophysical characterisation of a biomolecule; and apply or be able to explain the advantages and limitations of the methods identified.
- Describe how and why differences in experimental conditions, or available equipment, will influence the experimental strategy and outcome.
- Understand the requirements for writing a publication-quality research paper.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- Knowledge and understanding: key aspects of protein purification, enzyme assays and biophysical characterisation
- Technical and Practical Skills: training and practise of common techniques, and correct use and care of laboratory equipment and instruments.
- Personal and Intellectual Autonomy: course requires ability to (learn to) present and analyse experimental data effectively, and to integrate external reading material with taught material.
- Communication: Oral communication: students need to communicate effectively with peers to organise experiments and share equipment within, and between, groups. Scientific writing skills - students should learn to communicate details of experiments in different written formats, such as lab books, written reports, and experimental write-up.
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| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Delivery: 30 hours at the bench, 3 hours of taught computer based work, plus seven 1-hour of classroom teaching. |
| Keywords | BioChemB |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Janice Bramham
Tel: (0131 6)50 4786
Email: janice.bramham@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Andrea Nichol
Tel: (0131 6)50 8643
Email: Andrea.Nichol@ed.ac.uk |
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