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Biophysics
The course provides an introduction to the physics of living systems.
The goal is to show what and how physics can contribute to the understanding of biological systems and, vice versa, to show that living systems provide a goldmine of fascinating and relevant problems that often require more than just a mere application of existing physics.
We'll focus on 3 broad topics, which illustrate how physical thinking can contribute to understanding life's puzzles: how do biological organisms sense and process information to make decisions? How do the building blocks of life come together to create complex emergent behaviour? How do populations of individuals grow, compete, cooperate, and spread?
Programme
Information flow and processing in biological systems.
Introduction to information theory, example in search strategies, response to growth factors, activation of gene programs in development, and transmission of visual stimuli by the retina.
More is different: Collective behaviour and statistical mechanics, from molecules to neural networks.
Molecular models of cooperative binding. Maximum entropy models. Ensembles of protein families and contact predictions. Hopfield model of associative memories.
Populations, ecology and biological waves.
Introduction to ecological dynamics. Allee effect. Lokta-Volterra dynamics. Fisher-KPP waves.
Evaluation
The final grade will combine a 50% contribution from the final oral examination; 30% homework distributed throughout the course; 20% (10+10) for participation to classes and TAs.
Prerequisites
The course is an introduction to biophysics and no specific prerequisite is requested