In my sophomore level inorganic course, I have experimented with the idea of a living syllabus as a way to develop my own specific learning objectives and to help the students connect the material to the tasks that will be expected of them in assessing their learning.
This suite of activities can be used as a unit exploring the use of small molecule models and biophysical techniques to illuminate complicated biomolecules. The Parent LO: Modeling the FeB center in bacterial Nitric Oxide reductase is a short, data-filled and well-written article that is approachable with an undergraduate's level of understanding.
This is a problem set based on the article "Energetic Cuprous Azide Complex: Synthesis, Crystal Structure and Effection on the Thermal Decomposition of HMX" in the Journal of Chemical Crystallography. It has been used in a Chemistry Capstone course for both Chemistry and Biochemistry majors during the first semester senior year. Biochemistry majors are not required to take Inorganic Chemistry and Chemistry majors may be currently taking Inorganic chemistry.
This 5 slides about will introduce students to the concept of photoinduced electron transfer. These slides go over the energics of photoinduced electron transfer, which implements basic concepts of photochemistry and electrochemistry. The photoinduced electron transer properties of ris-(2,2'-bipyridine)-ruthenium(II) is used as an example.
In this literature discussion, students read a paper about a cobalt metallopeptide that imitates the active site of the enzyme nitrile hydratase. Specifically, the model complex is oxidized by air to produce a coordination sphere with both cysteine thiolate and sulfinic acid ligands, much like the post-translationally oxidized cysteine ligands in the biological system.
This is an in-class PDB exercise based on the paper "Mechanisms Controlling the Cellular Metal Economy" by Gilston and O'Halloran. Students are asked to visualize the metal binding sites of several proteins discussed in the paper, highlighting unusual metal geometries. After identifying the amino acid residues involved in metal binding, students will discuss the bond structure in terms of HSAB theory.
This five slides about chemical exchange transfer (CEST) discusses the magnetic properties of paramagnetic metal ions and their use as MR imaging agents. This includes tranditional contrast agents that affect the relaxation rate of nearby water protons and paramagnetic shift reagents suitable for CEST imaging applications. A recent redox-active cobalt complex is presented as an innovative agent for mapping redox imbalances in vivo.
This is a literature discussion of a review by Tom O'Halloran (The link to the paper is included in the "Web Resources" below). The review covers concepts of metal content in cells, metal trasport, storage, and regulation. Its a good review to start a broader or deeper discussion about metals in biology. We have provided some questions to help guide the student discussion. These questions can be given to students prior to coming to class, and the answers can either be used for the in-class discussion and/or collected.
In this experiment, students will synthesize a cobalt Schiff base complex with varying axial ligands ([Co(acacen)L2]+). They will characterize the complex using various techniques, and may perform computational modeling to predict spectroscopic properties.
This is a literature discussion based on the paper “Spectroscopic Elucidation of the Inhibitory Mechanism of Cys2