Admission requirements
Core course in MSc Life Science and Technology - molecular sciences. Elective course in MSc Chemistry.
This course is intended for students with a BSc MST, LST, or equivalent. Students are expected to have a basic understanding of coordination chemistry (d orbitals, coordination geometries), physical chemistry (binding constants, 1st order kinetics), biochemistry (nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, sugars), and spectroscopy (NMR, UV-vis, emission, infrared).
There will be a Crash Course on Coordination Chemistry (CCCC) lecture in the second week of the course covering the most important prerequisites and giving a reminder of coordination chemistry knowledge needed for the course. This extra lecture is strongly recommended for LST students and others who have had limited teaching in coordination chemistry.
Description
Metal ions such as iron, zinc, calcium, or copper, are ubiquitous in nature. They play a major role in biology, for example for the transmission of action potential along axons, for the transport and control of oxygen-based species, or for the appearance of diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease or diabetis.
The course first describes the binding of metal ions to biomolecules, how different metal ions differentiate from each other, and how different biomolecules and proteins bind to different metal ions. The second part of the course describes two families of proteins: those based on zinc ions, and those involved in the production, transport, and control of dioxygen. The specific role of the metal in these different proteins is discussed. A third part of the course studies how metals are absorbed by living cells and organisms, and transported to where they are needed. Then, the role of metal imbalance in disease is discussed, as well as heavy metal pollution. Finally, the last part of the course is dedicated to inorganic drugs and the use of metal-based compounds for medicine, looking at both imaging and therapy.
Course objectives
The students following this course will be trained to:
Understand and apply fundamental concepts in bioinorganic chemistry including how biological ligands bind to different metal ions, and which role metal ions and metal compounds play in health and disease
Understand which experimental techniques can be used to study metals in life
Extract information from the text and figures of a bioinorganic chemistry scientific article, to answer questions on it
Understand and manipulate association constants & rate constants that describe the thermodynamics and kinetics of metal binding to biological ligands
Timetable
Schedule information can be found on the website of the programmes.
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
This course follows the reverse classroom model: online videos are made available that should be looked at before each lecture. Each week, one exercise and ~10 questions on an article from the scientific literature, both related to the lecture of the day, are provided that should be prepared by all students before the lecture. The lecture itself consists in 45 min Q&A on the videos of the day, and 45 min either correcting the exercise or discussing the article using the provided questions.
Assessment method
Written examination using ans.app (100%), also for the retake. A student should have at least 5.51 on the exam to pass the course.
Reading list
The course is based on the slides presented during the courses and exercises and previous exams corrected together. The following book is recommended:
Biological Inorganic Chemistry, A New Introduction to Molecular Structure and Function (3rd Edition) by Robert Crichton, ISBN: 978-0-12-811741-5, Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology. A digital license is available for students of this course via the University Library system.
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Contact
Remarks
Assignment deadlines are communicated via Brightspace.
According to OER article 4.8, students are entitled to view their marked examination for a period of 30 days following the publication of the results of a written examination. Students should contact the lecturer to make an appointment for such an inspection session.
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.