Admission Requirements
A basic understanding of statistical physics is necessary. Material from Classical Mechanics B is also helpful but not absolutely necessary.
Description
Biophysics is different from “ordinary” physics as it studies systems that came about by evolution. In this course you learn that quantitative theoretical physics approaches are an essential ingredient to understand biological systems. This course treats biophysics at a level appropriate to MSc students: a mix of lectures, in-class discussions, reading assignments, homework, and student presentations of recent scientific papers. The following topics are discussed:
1. DNA packaging into nucleosomes, including worm-like chain, nucleosome breathing, micromanipulation experiments, Euler elasticas, Kirchhoff kinetic analogy, dynamical force spectroscopy
2. Polymer physics and critical phenomena, including random and self-avoiding walks, Flory argument, blob picture, critical points in ferromagnet systems, n-vector model, the limit n=0 as self-avoiding loops
3. DNA melting, including the Poland-Scheraga model, its partition function and the corresponding melting curve. Does DNA melt via a first-order phase transition? The answer lies in the Chapter 2 on polymer physics.
Course Objectives
After completion of this course, you will be able to:
Solve complicated problems in DNA mechanics and DNA melting
Analyze scientific papers in biophysics and present the essence thereof to an audience
Critically assess the usefulness of handwaving explanations of results found in biophysics experiments
Generic Skills (Soft Skills)
You will be able to:
master a new field of study in biophysics within a given time period
present your findings to fellow students in a convincing and inspiring way
Timetable
Mode of instruction
mix of lectures, in-class discussions, reading assignments, homework, and student presentations of recent scientific papers
Assessment method
The final grade is composed of three components: student presentation of a recent research paper (6/10th), homework (2/10) and final test (2/10).
Blackboard
Summary of each lecture, homework sheets, scientific papers (to be presented by students), reading assignments and scripts for parts of the lecture
To have access to Blackboard you need a ULCN-account.Blackboard UL
Reading list
Suggested reading material: H. Schiessel: “Biophysics for Beginners: Journey through the Cell Nucleus” Pan Stanford Publishing,
Contact
Lecturer: Prof.dr. H. Schiessel (Helmut)