Introduction to Biophysics

The lectures provide an introduction to biophysics, on the levels of molecules, cells and complex organisms and communities. We will obtain an overview of important processes that sustain life on the cellular scale, as well as the experimental tools to investigate them and the mathematical/physics concepts that describe them. Biophysics is a growing and interdisciplinary physics subfield, with exciting theoretical as well as experimental research directions that help us appreciate the complexity of life of our planet. Current research topics in biophysics range from determining the intricate motion and function of proteins inside cells, cellular substructure and patterns, and cellular communication from neurons over cellular communities and larger animals. In order to form a quantitative understanding of these topics, we will explore the physical description of these systems: we will learn about probability distributions, ODEs and simulation techniques to calculate expectations, for small and large number of particles, reaction-diffusion equations and non-linear dynamics approaches to solve them, and end with an understanding of entropy. We will relate these descriptions to traditional topics in the physics curriculum, such as (stochastic) thermodynamics, non-linear dynamics and statistical physics.

Topics include: single-molecule biophysics, molecular diffusion en random walk, simulation tools, probabilistic and stochastic descriptions of molecules, fluorescence microscopy en spectroscopy, neuronal information transmission including ion channels en electrophysiology, signaling pathways, reaction equations and their importance in development, stochasticity in gene expression, pattern formation, and biological computations.