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Description
Outline and Aims:
The students will be given background in Physical theories developed specifically for understanding Biological Systems. As these systems function out of equilibrium, very different and novel physical properties emerge that are not covered by classical physics.
Teaching and Learning Methodology:
This course is delivered via approximately 30 hours of lectures.
In addition to timetabled lecture hours, it is expected that students engage in self-study in order to master the material. This can take the form, for example, of practicing example questions and further reading in textbooks and online.
Indicative Topics:
- Computational modelling of biological processes. Computer simulations act as a bridge between molecular scales and the macroscopic world, and can serve as a mediator between analytical theory and experiment. These lectures will focus on advanced computational techniques developed to treat a large ensemble of explicit biological objects, such as macromolecules or cells. Emphasis will be placed on understanding how their complex interactions and stochastic nature lead to emergent collective behaviour. Taking inter-cellular trafficking, and protein aggregation in cells, as our case studies, we will discuss obtaining quantitative physical measurements in computer simulations that can be directly compared with experiments, and associated challenges.
- Physics of biological flows. This section of the course covers the physical theories that describes deformation of living matter at the scale of cells and tissues. We will start by introducing the hydrodynamics of simple fluids and the physics of biological swimmers. We will then present hydrodynamic theories of active complex fluids, which describe large scale flows of matter driven out of equilibrium by chemical energy, such as ATP consumption by myosins in the cytoskeleton. We will discuss physical models of morphogenesis of tissues at the end of the course.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.
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