Physical basis of protein–nucleic acid interaction. Topics include nucleic acid recognition by proteins, thermodynamics of protein–nucleic acid stability, and kinetics of binding process for both non-specific and sequence-specific nucleic acid binding proteins. Emphasis on systems that represent paradigms in protein–nucleic acid interactions.

Prerequisite: advanced graduate standing and completion of one year of basic graduate course work in biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, genetics, microbiology, or molecular biology.