Science without Borders - Chemistry
Do you want to know more about the driving forces behind molecular processes and interaction? Or learn methods used to calculate the geometric and electronic structures of compounds? The course package in chemistry offers four courses on advanced level.
The courses we offer are basic courses on our master programme in Chemistry. They are designed to cover our strong research areas in Chemistry at Umeå University. The courses involve a number of our top scientists and provide a blend of theory, methods, but also practical work using our state of the art instrumentation.
The courses are organized to follow your progression in the field and will qualify for further research or learning in the area. However, depending on your interest the recommended courses could be exchanged with for example a practical project at any of our active research groups.
Note that course I is mandatory for course II, and that course III is mandatory for course IV.
I) Advanced Experimental Tools in Chemistry, 15.0 Credits; HT2013 September 2 – November 8
Advanced experimental and instrumental chemistry techniques play key roles for the acquirement of data which are absolutely necessary in many fields of natural sciences, medicine and technology, both in academia and industry.
This course will give theoretical and practical knowledge about modern techniques to isolate and characterize different types of molecules important in life sciences and environmental sciences. The course will include four blocks covering tools for:
• synthesis and isolation
• separation
• identification and quantification
• structure characterization of molecules
Focus will be given to liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and NMR, IR and X-ray spectroscopy techniques. Theoretical lectures, exercises and self studies will be complemented by field sampling trips, organic synthesis laboratory work and practical work with advanced chemical instrumentation with applications closely related to local research activities in protein, medicinal and environmental chemistry
II) Biophysical-Chemical Concepts, 15.0 Credits; HT2013 November 11 – January 17;
The course provides comprehensive theoretical and experimental physico-chemical insights into the driving forces behind molecular processes and interactions. Physico-chemical concepts will provide a thermodynamic characterization of complex processes and the timescales they occur in biological events and the environment.
Special focus will be on molecular adsorption and partitioning processes with examples ranging from protein drug complexes, photosynthesis and green energy, to adsorption of environmental pollutants to biological and inorganic interfaces.
Experimental work will include state-of-the-art molecular spectroscopy, especially Raman, IR, CD; fluorescence, ESR, NMR and mass spectroscopy. The final part of the course will introduce students to quantum-mechanical concepts as used in theoretical chemistry.
III) Chemometrics, 7.5 Credits; VT2014 January 20 – February 28
The course will give an introduction to multivariate data analysis in chemistry and chemical industry. The course comprises the model concept, fit of empirical models to chemical data, statistical experimental design, optimization of chemical processes and projection methods for visualization of multivariate chemical data and multivariate process data.
The course comprises lectures, exercise in visualization of chemical multivariate process data.
The laboratory work illustrates synthesis optimization and analysis of chemical process data.
IV) Computational Chemistry, 7.5 Credits; VT2014 March 3 – March 28
The course includes computer-based calculations in chemistry. The course integrates theory with computational exercises applied in the fields of environmental chemistry, protein chemistry and medicinal chemistry.
Students are provided with knowledge of quantum chemistry, molecular mechanics, bioinformatics and theoretical characterization of molecules.
The course covers the methods used to calculate the geometric and electronic structures of compounds. It provides both theory and practical application of essential concepts in quantum chemistry and molecular mechanics. Computer-based applications to organic molecules in quantum chemistry will be described and discussed.
Focus in molecular mechanics is on the description and discussion of practical applications of organic molecules including proteins. The bioinformatic section of the course deals with building and using databases of biological information, protein sequence comparisons and 3D structure comparisons. The theory behind the techniques and assessment of the quality of the sequence comparison are treated and discussed. The theoretical characterization of the molecules links all sections of the course, i.e., quantum chemistry, molecular mechanics and bioinformatics.
Read more about the courses here.
