Seminar 1, Monday 08th February 2016 (09:00 – 11:00)
1. Molecular and functional diversity and modes of action of peptides in host defence (types of antimicrobial peptides, online resources, structural diversity of host defence peptides, functional diversity of host defence peptides, evolution of host defence peptides; sites of expression and roles in host defence; potential applications)

Seminar 2 and 3, Tuesday 09th February 2016 (09:00 – 11:00)
2. Modes of action of antimicrobial and host defence peptides – 1 (tools for studying host defence peptides, determining physic-chemical parameters (hydrophobicity, hydrophobic moments, structure contents etc.); biophysical methods for structure determination and probing membrane interaction (CD, IR etc); biochemical and biophysical methods for studying membrane integrity; antimicrobial assays (killing kinetics assays, growth kinetics assays, MIC - cytotoxicity assays)
3. Modes of action of antimicrobial and host defence peptides – 2 (rational design of analogues, sequence variation methods, effects of variations on antimicrobial activities, effects of variations on host cells cytotoxicity or activation; functional diversity in AMPs

Seminar 4 and 5, Wednesday 10th February 2016 (09:00 – 11:00)
4. The helical cathelicidins – different ways of permeabilizing a membrane (What are cathelicidins, molecular diversity and evolution, membranolytic and non-membranolytic modes of action of helical and proline-rich cathelicidins, structural characteristics of heilical cathelicidins, studying the structure and oligomerization, how oligomerization determines the mode of membrane permeabilization, use of flurescent probes to study membrane interactions and mode of action.
5. Pro-rich cathelicidins – intracellularly acting AMPs (Dual mode of action of Pro-rich peptides, internalization mechanism, internal targets for Bac 7, SAR studies to determine features relevant to internalization and antimicrobial activity, using Bac7 as a vehicle for antibiotic Cargo)