Transcript openhouse2007 - UBC Physics & Astronomy

Thanks!
to:
Paul Hickson
Scott Stubbs
Jeff Young
Janis McKenna
Oliva dela Cruz-Cordero
Carlotta Spino
The grad tour guides, including
Jake Bobowski and Lara Thompson
You for coming!
Biophysics
Biophysics (also biological physics)
is an interdisciplinary science
that applies the theories and methods of physics,
to questions of biology.
Wolfgang E. Pauli:
“Festkörperphysik ist eine Schmutzphysik.”
“Condensed matter physics is the physics of dirt.”
“Physics-envy is the curse of biology”
-- Joel Cohen (population biologist)
The dynamics of life
What quantity can tell us how far a structure is from folded?
DAN
DBN
Should be a geometrical
quantity depending only on
the 2 structures considered.
We generalize the treatment of distance between points
to find the distance between any two space curves.
L
T
S Nambu Goto [r  s, t ]   ds  dt r r   r  r 
2
0
0
2
r
r 
s
2
Applications to proteins.
Structures with
DMIN , DMAX
Gastrulation in
a fly embryo
Why is our head at the anterior? (meaningless)
Why is our heart on the left?
(meaningful)
Turing (1952), Morphogenesis:
Laws of physics E & M are LR symmetric
The initial distribution of embryos is LR symmetric
The distribution of fluctuations is LR symmetric
why not 50/50?
Amino acids are chiral!
Microscopic chirality
macroscopic handedness
Forensic DNA analysis
We invented a way
to find as few as 10
molecules of DNA
in a glass of water!
Applications: forensics, water safety, cancer detection
UBC Engineering Physics
Andre Marziali
Carl Michal – Solid-State NMR of biological materials
Structure-properties-function relationships
Spider silk
Sea-snail (whelk) egg capsule
Q
Hagfish slime threads
Why study biophysics?
• Interesting science questions, interesting systems
• Quantitative tools (analytical and computational)
are necessary for solutions, bio is becoming
more quantitative.
• Active and relatively new area of research with
much opportunity.
• Significant and growing interest in the field.
Fusion of HIV virus w a cell