Emerging physical approaches and quantitative measurement techniques are providing new insights into longstanding biological questions. This course will present underlying physical theory, quantitative measurement techniques, and significant findings in molecular and cellular biophysics. Principles covered include Brownian motion, low Reynolds-number environments, forces relevant to cells and molecules, chemical potentials, and free energies. These principles are applied to enzymes as molecular machines, membranes, DNA, and RNA.
Topics to be Covered:
Introduction to biophysics/physical biology and quantitative modeling
Stokes-Einstein relation and applications
Gibbs free energy and Entropy
Diffusion-limited reaction rates, and dynamics in the cell
Mechanical and chemical equilibrium in the living cell
Random walks and Biopolymer structures
Electrostatics in salty solutions, osmotic pressure, Poisson-Boltzmann equation, Debye length
Cellular membranes and membrane potential
Beam theory and cytoskeleton mechanics,
Chemical kinetics
Single molecule manipulation and imaging techniques
I teach Physics 559 as an introduction to soft-matter physics. Soft-matter broadly encompasses systems where the key length scales are much larger than atomic scales, including materials such as polymers, colloids, surfactants and liquid crystals. Soft-matter systems surround us in our daily life (think plastics, rubbers, gels, shampoo, paints, sauces and souflées!), yet soft-matter physics underpins many nanotechnology related areas and the physics of living systems. Inspired by the towering example of physics nobel laureate P. de Gennes, we will explore principles common to this diverse range of systems, in particular the underlying importance of scale-invariance, while maintaining a clear connection to phenomenology and recent experiment.
Topics to be Covered:
Review of thermodynamics/statistical mechanics
Correlation and scattering functions
Fractals and scale-invariance
Phase-transitions in soft-matter systems
Landau theory of phase transitions
Functional formulation of mean-field theory
Liquid crystals
Random-walk models for polymers and diffusion
Soft-matter interactions such as screened electrostatics and van der Walls