Thursday 19 March 2026 9:30am
Research Informatics Training Room, Craik-Marshall Building
About
Dates: Thu 19 and Fri 20 March 2026
Time: 09:30 - 17:30
Location: Research Informatics Training Room, Craik-Marshall Building
The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access.
DescriptionDetermining the 3 dimensional (3D) structure of a protein from its amino sequence is vital for understanding its core biological functions. This can be done using experimental approaches, which are the standard for validating high-resolution and accurate structures. However, these methods can be costly, time-consuming and technically difficult to achieve for certain proteins. To complement these approaches, computational methods can be used, which increase the speed of prediction, can be scaled to higher throughput and are much cheaper to run.
This course covers how to computationally predict the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences. We will focus on AlphaFold, a software that has revolutionised this process due to its outstanding (near-experimental) prediction accuracy. Other key aspects will be covered such as retrieving structural information from public databases, evaluating the quality of the predicted models, model visualisation with ChimeraX, multimer predictions, prediction of ligand binding sites and docking. After this course you should be able to produce 3D predictions of your proteins, while critically evaluating the output of the methods covered in the course.
How to book Target audience- Everyone is welcome to attend the courses.
- Understanding of the basics of protein structure is expected.
Fees must be paid at registration.
Free for registered University of Cambridge students
£ 65/full day for all University of Cambridge staff, including postdocs.
£ 65/full day for all academic participants from external Institutions and charitable organizations.
£ 130/full day for all Industry participants.
For further information about the courses, please email the Research Informatics Training Team.