Phd in BIOCHEMISTRY

Educational goals and objectives

BIOCHEMISTRY

The PhD in Biochemistry is rather unique among the bio-molecular and biomedical PhD programmes. The major educational aim of this programme is to form young scientists able to figure out biochemical problems on the frontier of biology and medicine. At the end of the Course, the biochemistry PhD students are expected to be able to recognise the existence of open questions, to frame them within the current scientific knowledge, and related international literature, and to propose ways of experimentally approaching them. In this respect, these students are expected to design experiments and protocols suitable to solve or at least to correctly approach the problems, also making use of most advanced experimental tools available. Thus, their cultural and scientific background is considered of paramount importance together with high level continuous practical bench-training, both needing to be as vast and profound as possible; all specializations being achieved only at latest stages and always as a finalised part of the Programme. Most of these young scientists are called to cope with oral presentations in scientific meetings of national/international level. All above is ideally achieved during 3 years courses whereby every student experiences, individually, the possibility of carrying out his own research. The acquisition of the theoretical and the practical knowledge proceeds in parallel in such a way to optimise the growth of the young biochemical scientist. The overall process is supervised by a Tutor and typically in one of the bio-molecular and biotechnological areas operative in the Department of Biochemical Sciences, namely: Cellular Biochemistry and Physiology Basic Biochemistry Protein Chemistry Calcium signalling and signal transduction Amidohydrolases Antioxidants Oxidative stress and carcinogenesis Pyridossal-phosphate Enzymes Inorganic Biochemistry Aminoxidases Nitric Oxide & Nitrite reductases in eukaryotes and prokaryotes Fe transport & storage Molecular Biology and Biophysics Enzymology Globins Proteins, DNA & nuclear cromatin Viral genome Terminal Oxidases & Bioenergetics Thermodynamics of Conformational Stability Structural Biology Biocristallography Protein Folding Proteomics & Peptidomics Bioinformatics Structural Dynamics Biotechnology Bacterial & Vegetal toxins Bioactive peptides & Immunity Proteins & Enzymes from extremophyles Protein - haemoglobin engineering Engineering of hemoglobin as a blood substitute Bio active compounds of pharmacological interest.