PHYSICS 430x: Modern Biological Physics

Schedule: 2 Lectures per week: Monday; Wednesday, 4pm -5:15pm

Location: East Hall, Room 305

Instructor: Yana Reshetnyak, Physics Department; E-mail: reshetnyak@mail.uri.edu

Credits: 3 (for both undergraduate and graduate students)

Enrollment: The permission number is required*

*To get permission number please contact Dr. Reshetnyak via e-mail: reshetnyak@mail.uri.edu

The major goal of biological physics is to apply approaches and methods developed in physics to study living systems. The course will review structure, organization and function of biological polymers (proteins, RNA, DNA and membranes), which are the major molecules of living systems.

Course Content:

Introduction: Brief review of living system organization: whole organism, tissue, cells, molecules. General description of biological molecules: DNA, RNA, proteins, membranes.

Water and its role for the stabilization of biomolecules

Forces stabilize biomolecules structure

Application of thermodynamics and statistical physics in study of biopolymers

Comparison between randomly designed polymers and proteins

Protein folding: thermodynamic and kinetics points of view

Protein folding: old and new concepts with use of stat. physics

Protein function: structure changes and dynamics

Computation methods in study of protein structure and dynamics

DNA and PNA structures

Elastic rod model for the description of DNA configurations

Biological function of DNA and RNA

Membrane composition and self organization

Mechanical properties of membrane

Membrane proteins and their biological role

Nucleotides: “storage of energy”

Biomolecular motors. Brownian motion.

Evolution and biomolecules origin.

Textbooks:

1. Philip Nelson “Biological Physics”. Energy, Information, Life” W.H. Freeman and Company, New York 2004.

2. Alexei V. Finkelstein and Oleg Ptitsyn “Protein Physics: A Course of Lectures (Soft Condensed Matter, Complex Fluids and Biomaterials Series)” Academic Press, 2002.

Additional reading:

Ken Dill

Grading:

Midterm exam 50%

Final exam 50%