Biophysics

nanoscales to "walk" along a microtubule

.

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Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in

.

The term biophysics was originally introduced by Karl Pearson in 1892.^[4][5] The term biophysics is also regularly used in academia to indicate the study of the physical quantities (e.g. electric current, temperature, stress, entropy) in biological systems. Other biological sciences also perform research on the biophysical properties of living organisms including molecular biology, cell biology, chemical biology, and biochemistry.

Overview

Molecular biophysics typically addresses biological questions similar to those in biochemistry and molecular biology, seeking to find the physical underpinnings of biomolecular phenomena. Scientists in this field conduct research concerned with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between DNA, RNA and protein biosynthesis, as well as how these interactions are regulated. A great variety of techniques are used to answer these questions.

biological machine that utilizes protein dynamics

molecules

or complexes of molecules.

In addition to traditional (i.e. molecular and cellular) biophysical topics like

neurons

, as well as neural circuit analysis in both tissue and whole brain.

History

The studies of

William T. Bovie (1882–1958) is credited as a leader of the field's further development in the mid-20th century. He was a leader in developing electrosurgery.

The popularity of the field rose when the book What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger was published. Since 1957, biophysicists have organized themselves into the Biophysical Society which now has about 9,000 members over the world.^[10]

Some authors such as

Focus as a subfield

While some colleges and universities have dedicated departments of biophysics, usually at the graduate level, many do not have university-level biophysics departments, instead having groups in related departments such as biochemistry, cell biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, molecular biology, neuroscience, pharmacology, physics, and physiology. Depending on the strengths of a department at a university differing emphasis will be given to fields of biophysics. What follows is a list of examples of how each department applies its efforts toward the study of biophysics. This list is hardly all inclusive. Nor does each subject of study belong exclusively to any particular department. Each academic institution makes its own rules and there is much overlap between departments.^{[citation needed]}

• Gene regulation, single protein dynamics, bioenergetics, patch clamping, biomechanics, virophysics
  .
• Structural biology – Ångstrom-resolution structures of proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates, and complexes thereof.
• Biochemistry and chemistry – biomolecular structure, siRNA, nucleic acid structure, structure-activity relationships.
• Computer science – Neural networks, biomolecular and drug databases.
• Computational chemistry – molecular dynamics simulation, molecular docking, quantum chemistry
• Bioinformatics – sequence alignment, structural alignment, protein structure prediction
• Mathematics – graph/network theory, population modeling, dynamical systems, phylogenetics.
• medical schools
  , mainly in Europe.
• Neuroscience – studying neural networks experimentally (brain slicing) as well as theoretically (computer models), membrane permittivity.
• channelomics, electrophysiology, biomolecular interactions, cellular membranes, polyketides
  .
• stochastic processes, and the development of new physical techniques and instrumentation
  as well as their application.
• isomers
  to yield time-dependent base substitutions. These studies imply applications in quantum computing.
• Agronomy and agriculture

Many

are unique to this field. Research efforts in biophysics are often initiated by scientists who were biologists, chemists or physicists by training.

See also

References

Sources

Library resources about
Biophysics

---

• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Perutz MF (1962). Proteins and Nucleic Acids: Structure and Function. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  ASIN B000TS8P4G
  .
• Perutz MF (May 1969). "The Croonian Lecture, 1968. The haemoglobin molecule". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences. 173 (1031): 113–40.
  S2CID 22104752
  .
• Dogonadze RR, Urushadze ZD (1971). "Semi-Classical Method of Calculation of Rates of Chemical Reactions Proceeding in Polar Liquids".
  doi:10.1016/S0022-0728(71)80189-4
  .
• Volkenshtein MV, Dogonadze R, Madumarov AK, Urushadze ZD, Kharkats YI (1972). "Theory of Enzyme Catalysis". Molekuliarnaia Biologiia. 6 (3). Moscow: 431–439.
  PMID 4645409
  . In Russian, English summary. Available translations in Italian, Spanish, English, French
• ISBN 978-0-471-48538-4
  .
• Sneppen K, Zocchi G (2005-10-17). Physics in Molecular Biology (1 ed.).
  ISBN 978-0-521-84419-2
  .
• Glaser R (2004-11-23). Biophysics: An Introduction (Corrected ed.). Springer.
  ISBN 978-3-540-67088-9
  .
• Hobbie RK, Roth BJ (2006). Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology (4th ed.). Springer.
  ISBN 978-0-387-30942-2
  .
• Cooper WG (August 2009). "Evidence for transcriptase quantum processing implies entanglement and decoherence of superposition proton states". Bio Systems. 97 (2): 73–89.
  PMID 19427355
  .
• Cooper WG (December 2009). "Necessity of quantum coherence to account for the spectrum of time-dependent mutations exhibited by bacteriophage T4". Biochemical Genetics. 47 (11–12): 892–910.
  S2CID 19325354
  .
• Goldfarb D (2010). Biophysics Demystified. McGraw-Hill.
  ISBN 978-0-07-163365-9
  .

External links

At Wikiversity, you can learn more and teach others about Biophysics at the Department of Biophysics

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Biophysics.

• Biophysical Society
• Journal of Physiology: 2012 virtual issue Biophysics and Beyond
• bio-physics-wiki
• Link archive of learning resources for students: biophysika.de (60% English, 40% German)