Courses

• GRS CH 622: Biochemistry II
  Polysaccharides, energy storage and recognition; intermediary metabolism; lipid and isoprene metabolism; nitrogen metabolism; nucleotide metabolism; macromolecular biosynthesis with emphasis on specificity and fidelity in the mechanisms of RNA, DNA, and proteins synthesis. Three hours lecture, four hours laboratory, one hour discussion. Same as GRS BI 622. Lecture and laboratory meet with CAS BI/CH 422
• GRS CH 625: Enzymology: Mechanisms of Enzymatic Reactions
  Covers enzyme structure-function relationships. A tool-box of methods is presented, including kinetics (steady state and pre-steady state methods), isotope effects, stereo-chemical methods, site-directed mutagenesis, methods to replace natural with unnatural amino acids, mechanism based inhibitors.
• GRS CH 626: Epigenetics
  Surveys protein post-translational modifications and DNA/RNA processing, including mechanistic enzymology of protein and DNA modifications, signal transduction induced by the modifications, and related practical applications.
• GRS CH 627: RNA Structure and Function
  Chemical and structural biology of natural RNA molecules, including ribosomal RNA, catalytic RNA (ribozymes), siRNA (small interfering RNA), and other small transcribed RNA molecules. Some attention to biological function, but main focus is not RNA cell and molecular biology.
• GRS CH 629: DNA Nanotechnology
  Structural biology of DNA. Synthetic DNA objects, DNA templated synthesis, DNAzymes. While biological function is mentioned, the main focus is DNA in nanotechnology, not the involvement of DNA in cell and molecular biology.
• GRS CH 631: Advanced Coordination Chemistry I: Structure and Bonding
  The interdependence of chemical bonding, spectroscopic characteristics, and reactivity properties of coordination compounds and complexes are described and formalized using the fundamental concept of symmetry, as applied to inorganic coordination complexes.
• GRS CH 632: Advanced Coordination Chemistry II: Inorganic Reaction Mechanisms
  The mechanistic study of ligand substitution and electron transfer processes in coordination compounds are discussed in the context of basic molecular orbital theory. The connections between small molecule inorganic and biological macromolecular metal-catalyzed processes are presented.
• GRS CH 633: Physical Methods for Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry
  A discussion of the physical techniques for the study of structural, magnetic, and redox-active properties of transitional metal complexes. Techniques discussed include x-ray crystallography; x-ray absorption; vibrational, NMR, EPR, and Mossbauer spectroscopies; and electrochemistry.
• GRS CH 635: Synthetic Methodology in Inorganic Chemistry
  The descriptive chemistries of the metallic elements are surveyed to develop a broad knowledge of these elements and how to prepare their compounds and understand the resultant reactivities. Case studies are taken from older and recent literature sources.
• GRS CH 641: Physical Organic Chemistry
  Physical fundamentals of organic chemistry. Thermodynamics, kinetics, molecular orbital theory, and theory of concerted reactions. Isotope effects, aromaticity, linear free energy relationships, acidity functions, photo- and free-radical chemistry.
• GRS CH 642: Organic Reaction Mechanisms
  Fundamentals of organic reaction mechanisms. Techniques used to study reaction mechanisms. Reactive intermediates: carbonium ions, radicals, carbenes, and nitrenes. Acid/base catalysis, reactions for the carbonyl group, cycloaddition, nucleophilic displacement reactions, and redox chemistry.
• GRS CH 643: Synthetic Methods of Organic Chemistry
  Organic synthesis strategies for total synthesis. Various approaches for organic molecules whose synthesis constitutes major contributions to organic chemistry.
• GRS CH 644: Medicinal Chemistry
  Synthetic organic chemistry and pharmacology as applied to development, testing, and production of medically useful agents. Lectures and discussions by research chemists affiliated with leading pharmaceutical companies. A research paper is required.
• GRS CH 645: Transition Metal Chemistry
  Introduction to the concepts of transition metal-mediated reactions and mechanisms, including electronic structure and properties, reaction mechanisms, kinetics, organometallic compounds, catalytic reactions, and aspects of asymmetric catalysis.
• GRS CH 651: Molecular Quantum Mechanics I
  Postulates of quantum mechanics with emphasis on chemical applications; application to model systems: particle in a box, harmonic oscillator, rigid rotor, hydrogen atom; tunneling; angular momentum theory, spin; ladder operators, computational methods.
• GRS CH 652: Molecular Quantum Mechanics II
  The chemical bond; Huckel, molecular orbital, and valence bond theories; ab initio methods, density functional theory; Born-Oppenheimer approximation/breakdown; time-dependent processes; Fermi's golden rule; non-adiabaticity; time-dependent perturbation theory; computational methods.
• GRS CH 654: Methods of Chemical Physics
  Vector calculus with applications. Fourier series and Fourier integral with applications and function of a complex variable with applications. Also Green's function methods, theory of linear vector spaces, and solutions of eigenfunction problems.
• GRS CH 655: Statistical Mechanics I
  Introduction to statistical mechanical fundamentals; ensemble theory, Fermi-Dirac, Bose-Einstein, Gibbs-Boltzmann statistics; computational methods, Monte Carlo, Molecular Dynamics, many-body quantum mechanical simulations, normal mode analysis; ergodic hypothesis, modern theories of liquids and biomolecules, thermodynamic perturbation theory, integral equations, Debye-Huckel theory.
• GRS CH 658: Chemical Kinetics and Dynamics
  Chemical kinetics and reaction dynamics. Rate theory. Theoretical models of reaction dynamics: transition state theory, collision theory, statistical methods. Transport theory. Modern experimental approaches. Photochemical and photophysical dynamics, energy transfer, condensed phase and atmospheric reaction processes.
• GRS CH 699: Teaching College Chemistry I
  The goals, contents, and methods of instruction in chemistry. General teaching-learning issues. Required of all teaching fellows.

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