Biophysics

5.Chemical forces: Kinetics

6.Physics of lipid membranes

7.Applying biophysics to biologically relevant phenomena

8.Ligand-receptor mediated (multivalent) interactions:

     Equilibrium: adhesion-free energies; physical selectivity; limitations to the equilibrium approach

     Host-guest dynamics: detachment times; stickiness of multivalent interactions; motility induced by catalytic activity

9.Information processing in biology

     From single neuron dynamics to neural computation

     The Hopfield Models

10.Relevant techniques (homework and presentation)

Upon the course completion the students should be able to

- Understand the interactions within biological building blocks

- Be familiar with the structure, mechanical properties and phase behavior of biopolymers (nucleic acids and proteins), lipid membranes

- Use statistical mechanics to understand thermodynamic potentials and how biological processes can be described by their minimization. Understand the notion of detailed balance

- Define reaction coordinates and calculate rates of reactions along these

coordinates. Be familiar with Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetics

- Understand the importance of transport properties (diffusion, viscosity, etc)

and their role in biological processes

- Apply the fundamental physical principles to understand how they govern the

function of important biological phenomena such as nerve pulse propagation,

bacterial adhesion membrane deformation and gene regulation

Slides and supporting books

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

• Howard, J. (2001). Mechanics of Motor Proteins and the Cytoskeleton. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.

• Phillips, R., Kondev, J., Theriot, J., Garcia, H. G., & Orme, N. (2012). Physical Biology of the Cell (2nd ed.). New York: Garland Science.
   
• Cotterill, R. M. J. (2002). Biophysics: An Introduction. Chichester: Wiley.

• Heimburg, T. (2007). Thermal Biophysics of Membranes. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH.
  
  Hertz, J., Krogh, A., & Palmer, R. G. (1991). Introduction to the Theory of Neural Computation. (chapter 1, 2)

  Albert et al, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

  Rob Phillips and Ron Milo, Cell Biology by the Numbers.

Course notes

• Université virtuelle

Campus

Plaine

Method(s) of evaluation

• Oral examination
• Oral presentation

Oral examination

Oral presentation

Language(s) of evaluation

• english
• (if applicable french )