Department of Chemistry course timetable

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

In this short talk we will cover what supervisions are, the role they play in Cambridge teaching, and how supervisors are recruited. We will then go on to look at how you can prepare for supervising, how you can conduct a supervision, and how to deal with common pitfalls.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This compulsory session introduces Research Data Management (RDM) to Chemistry PhD students. It is highly interactive and utilises practical activities throughout.

Key topics covered are:

• Research Data Management (RDM) - what it is and what problems can occur with managing and sharing your data.
• Data backup and file sharing - possible consequences of not backing up your data, strategies for backing up your data and sharing your data safely.
• Data organisation - how to organise your files and folders, what is best practice.
• Data sharing - obstacles to sharing your data, benefits and importance of sharing your data, the funder policy landscape, resources available in the University to help you share your data.
• Data management planning - creating a roadmap for how not to get lost in your data!

Lunch and refreshments are included for this course

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This is a compulsory session which introduces new graduate students to the Department of Chemistry Library and its place within the wider Cambridge University Library system. It provides general information on what is available, where it is, and how to get it. Print and online resources are included.

You must choose one session out of the 9 sessions available.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

‘Effective Researchers in Chemistry’ is for first year PhD students starting to engage with their projects. This workshop provides a highly interactive opportunity for PhD students to share issues and come to terms with what is actually required from them. Exercises cover project planning and management and working effectively with others (including supervisors). The lead tutor is a Chartered Chemist with extensive R&D management experience in industry, including the supervision of PhD students working on collaborative projects.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

This course is made up of 10 sessions which will be based around the topics below: unlike other courses in the Graduate Lecture Series, it is essential to attend all 10 sessions to benefit from this training. Places are limited so please be absolutely certain upon booking that you will commit to the entire course.

Much of scientific knowledge and information is communicated in written form, be it via journal publications, theses or in other media. However, scientific writing differs from other styles of writing quite significantly, with regard to structure, grammar and word choice. This lecture will outline the basics of what to consider when 'writing science', in order to smoothen the path to your first peer-reviewed publication, as well as your later thesis.

The main aim of giving a presentation to the public or a science venue is to present information in a way that the audience will remember at a later time. There are several ways in which we can improve this type of impact with an audience. This interactive lecture explores some of those mechanisms.

This hands-on course teaches the basics of Latex including syntax, lists, maths equations, basic chemical equations, tables, graphical figures and internal and external referencing. We also learn how to link documents to help manage large projects. The course manual is presented in the style of a thesis and since you also receive the source code you also receive a template for a thesis.

Alkaloids are nitrogen-containing natural products produced primarily by plants but also by all other types of organism. They have a wide range of biological and medicinal properties, e.g. stimulants, toxins, hallucinogens, anti-cancer, anti-malaria, etc. In this lecture we will look at ways in which we can discover how an organism makes a particular natural product and then look at the biosynthetic pathways to one or two of the huge number of known alkaloids. Finally we will look at ways in which people have exploited existing biosynthetic pathways to make altered natural products or to transfer production to more amenable organisms.

Terpenes (isoprenoids) are the largest class of natural product. They all share a common biosynthetic pathway in which a linear hydrocarbon diphosphate undergoes cationic cyclisation followed by a seies of rearrangements, oxidations, cleavages etc. to generate the vast array of known structures. In this lecture we will look at the biosynthetic pathways to some of the more well-known terpenes, at engineering readily grown organisms to make medicinal terpenes or biofuels, and at organic synthetic reactions inspired by the terpene biosynthetic pathway.

Polyketides, made by polyketide synthases (PKS), and non-ribosomal peptides, made by non-ribosomal peptide synthases (NRPS) are futher large classes of natural products containing very important medicinal compounds, including antibiotics erthyromycin (PKS), penicillins and vancomycin (NRPS). Unlike the alkaloids and terpenes, which are made by a succession of steps catalysed by monofunctional enzymes, polyketides and non-ribosomal peptides are generally made by huge multifunctional proteins, to which the starting material is tethered at the start of the process and then extended and modified by a series of domains in the protein, before finally being released at the end of the chain. This lecture will look at the mechanisms involved and the organisation of these "molecular production lines".