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Introduction to Biophysics. I.

Introduction to Biophysics. I. Jiunn-Ren Roan. Fall 2004. What is biophysics?. Let’s see what a book published in 1983 says…. My favorite definition…. A biophysicist talks physics to the biologists and biology to the physicists, but when he meets

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Introduction to Biophysics. I.

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  1. Introduction to Biophysics. I. Jiunn-Ren Roan Fall 2004

  2. What is biophysics? Let’s see what a book published in 1983 says…

  3. My favorite definition… A biophysicist talks physics to the biologists and biology to the physicists, but when he meets another biophysicist, they just discuss women. From A. L. Mackay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations

  4. Everyone has his/her own definition of biophysics. Perhaps the best way to answer the question is to see what biological problems physicists are studying.

  5. From C. Holden, Science304, 1830 (2004). Why study biophysics? 1 4 2 9 3 6 5 7 7

  6. Some aspects of biophysics. 1. • Biophysics at the molecular level: • Determination and prediction of protein structures • Single-molecule spectroscopy • Molecular motors • The protein folding problem • DNA-protein interactions …

  7. Some aspects of biophysics. 2. • Biophysics at the cellular level: • Transport within and across cell membranes • Structure and properties of cell membranes • Propagation of neural signals • Cytoskeleton and cell movements • Cytokinesis …

  8. Some aspects of biophysics. 3. • Biophysics at multicellular and higher levels: • Tissue and biomedical engineering • Physical and mathematical physiology • Biomechanics and biorheology • Population dynamics and theory of evolution • Mathematical epidemiology …

  9. Another way to define biophysics is to see what some important biophysicists did and how their background in physics helped them.

  10. Important physical biologists and biophysicists (and how they developed their careers) • Archibald V. Hill (1922 Nobel Prize) • (Biography: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1922/hill-bio.html) • Linus C. Pauling (1954 Nobel Prize) • (Biography: Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling) • Francis H. C. Crick & Maurice H. F. Wilkins (1962 Nobel Prize) • (Crick’s autobiography: What Mad Pursuit; • Wilkin’s autobiography: The Third Man of the Double Helix) • Max F. Perutz & John C. F. Kendrew (1962 Nobel Prize) • (Perutz’s obituary by Crick: Phys. Today55, 62 (2002); • Perutz’s and Kendrew’s biographies: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1962/index.html) • Alan L. Hodgkin & Andrew F. Huxley (1963 Nobel Prize) • (Hodgkin’s autobiography: Chance & Design; • Huxley’s biography: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1963/huxley-bio.html) • Max Delbrück (1969 Nobel Prize) • (Biography: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1969/delbruck-bio.html)

  11. Allan M. Cormack & Godfrey N. Hounsfield (1979 Nobel Prize) • (Autoiography: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1979/index.html) • Aaron Klug (1982 Nobel Prize) • (Autobiography: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1982/klug-autobio.html) • Erwin Neher & Bert Sakmann (1991 Nobel Prize) • (Autobiography: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1991/index.html) • Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker & J. C. Skou (1997 Nobel Prize) • (Autobiographies: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1997/index.html) • John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka & Kurt Wüthrich (2002 Nobel Prize) • (Autobiographies: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/2002/index.html) • Peter Agre & Roderick MacKinnon (2003 Nobel Prize) • (Autobiography: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/2003/index.html) • Paul C. Lauterbur & Peter Mansfield (2003 Nobel Prize) • (Biography: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/2003/index.html)

  12. So, as a physics major, what do you have to learn if you are a biophysicist-wannabe?

  13. molecular biology cell biology physiology organic chemistry ecology …

  14. Purpose of this course To help physics majors learn basic biochemistry and physical biochemistry, so that they will at least have no fear when they encounter bio-jargon in literature and, hopefully, will begin to appreciate biological sciences.

  15. Advice of a successful biophysicist, Crick “What gives biological research its special flavor is the long-continued operation of natural selection. … Another key feature of biology is the existence of many identical examples of complex structures. … If this were produced by chance alone, without the aid of natural selection, it would be regarded as almost infinitely improbable. … It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research.” “Physicists are all too apt to look for the wrong sorts of generalizations, to concoct theoretical models that are too neat, too powerful, and too clean. Not surprisingly, these seldom fit well with the data.” “…one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.”

  16. References • F. H. C. Crick, What Mad Pursuit, Basic Books (1988).

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