001 What Is Biophysics

WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS?
Scope And History of The Discipline
THE OVERLAP BETWEEN BIOLOGY AND PHYSICS
The Overlap Between Biology And Physics

• Strength is related to cross-sectional area
• Weight is related to volume
• Volume increases faster than area in scaling up
• The surface area to volume ratio for a larger gorilla is 1:10
SURFACE AREA TO VOLUME RATIO
 The size and metabolic rate of an organism affects how much of materials need to be exchanged. This affects
what the organism's exchange surface must be like.
 Exchange of materials happens at an organism's surface, but the materials are used to supply the cells that
make up its volume. For this reason, an organism's surface area must be large compared with its volume for
exchange to be effective.
o The surface area to volume ratio gets smaller as the organism gets larger
 Small animals have a large enough surface area compared with their volume for efficient
exchange. Many small animals use simple diffusion for exchange, but not all.
o Animals with a large surface area (small S.A. To Vol. ratio) lose heat at a lower rate.
 Larger organisms have larger volumes but smaller surface areas.

For these animals, simple diffusion wouldn't provide enough of
the materials and if it did, it would still take too long for the
materials to reach the middle of the organism. To overcome this,
these organisms have evolved either:
o a flat shape so no cell is far from the surface e.g.
flatworm
o or a specialised exchange surface to increase the surface
area to volume ratio e.g. lungs, gills.
WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS?
• It is the study of physical phenomena and

processes in living things, on the scale that
includes molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms
• It is also the study of biological systems using the
principles and methods of physics
• It is an interdisciplinary science that combines
together biology, physics, chemistry, and
mathematics as applied to living and (also)
artificial organisms
WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS?
• Paradigm: “A biological system is not simply the sum of its molecular components but is rather their
functional integration.”
 Highly organized anisotropic structure

o Structure–function relationships are
central to biophysics
Biophysics: QUESTIONS IN BIOPHYSICS:
 How does the brain process and store information?

 How does the heart pump blood?
 How do muscles contract?
 How do plants use light for growth?
 How are genes switched on and off?
WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS?
• Biophysics studies how atoms are arranged and work in proteins:

– Protein molecules perform the body’s chemical reactions
– Proteins help the senses ‘make sense’ of the environment
– Proteins repair cells and regulate growth
– Proteins fire electrical signals in the brain
– Proteins read the DNA blueprints and copy it for future generations
QUESTIONS BIOPHYSICISTS ASK: HOW DO PROTEINS FOLD?
 How does the structure determine function? Why do molecules and parts of
molecules assume the shapes they do? How do they fold into these shapes, and
how do they change their structure under changing conditions? The shapes
molecules take depend on the physical and chemical forces acting upon them
and within them.
 Studying these questions require technology: x-ray crystallography, nuclear
magnetic resonance spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy, recombinant DNA, computation, and
others.
BIOPHYSICS: CLASSIFICATION
 Biophysical subjects based on relative size of subject

– Molecular and subcellular biophysics
– Physiological and anatomical biophysics
– Environmental biophysics
 Biophysical techniques and application

– General biophysical techniques
– Imaging biophysics
– Medical biophysics
WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS: CLASSIFICATION
• Physiological and anatomical biophysics

– Biomechanics deals with the application of forces to biological objects. Biomechanics is studied at
the subcellular, physiological, and environmental levels.
– Electrophysiology studies the electrical aspects of living things. It is concerned with excitable tissue
that create, conduct, or use electrical impulses. Excitable tissues include nerves, muscles, sensory
cells, and electro-receptive cells.
• Environmental biophysics focuses on the physical aspects between the organisms and their environment.
– Heat and temperature environmental biophysics
– Resource and mass exchange environmental biophysics
– Radiation biophysics
Environmental bioengineering
• Molecular and Subcellular Biophysics

– Structure and conformation of biological molecules
– Structure-function relationship
– Conformational transitions
– Ligand building and intermolecular binding
– Diffusion and molecular transport
– Membrane biophysics
– DNA and nucleic acid biophysics
– Energy flow and bioenergetics
– Statistical mechanics
– Kinetics
– Molecular machines
BIOPHYSICS: FIRST BIOPHYSICISTS
 Epicurus, 3rd century BCE

– Living organisms follow the same laws as non living objects
 Heraclitus, 5th century BCE

– Earliest mechanistic theories of life processes
– “Change is central to the universe”
 Galen, 2nd century CE

– Most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period
– Influenced medicine for 1,300 years
– Better understanding of anatomy was only done by Vesalius in 1543
– Better understanding of blood and heart was achieved in 1628
 Leonardo da Vinci, 16th century CE

– Studied the mechanical principles of bird flight for use in engineering design (bionics)
 Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, 17th century CE

 Related animals to machines and used math to prove his
 theories
 De Motu Animalium is a comprehensive biomechanical
description of limb mobility, bird flight, swimming motion,
and heart function
 Luigi Galvani, 18th century CE

– Touched frog nerve with charged scalpel
– Signal transduction in neurons and communication between neurons and
muscle has electrical nature
BIOPHYSICS: DISCOVERIES RELATING TO BIOPHYSICS
• First law of thermodynamics

• Optical aspects of the human eye
• Theory of hearing
• Brownian motion
• Osmotic process
• Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
• Discovery of x-rays
• Discovery of DNA structure
• Information theory
• Statistical physics of polymers
• Transmission of order from one organism to its descendants
• Gene mutation and molecular genetics

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WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS?

Scope And History of The Discipline

THE OVERLAP BETWEEN BIOLOGY AND PHYSICS

The Overlap Between Biology And Physics

SURFACE AREA TO VOLUME RATIO

 Larger organisms have larger volumes but smaller surface areas.

• It is the study of physical phenomena and

 Highly organized anisotropic structure

Biophysics: QUESTIONS IN BIOPHYSICS:

 How does the brain process and store information?

• Biophysics studies how atoms are arranged and work in proteins:

QUESTIONS BIOPHYSICISTS ASK: HOW DO PROTEINS FOLD?

 Biophysical subjects based on relative size of subject

 Biophysical techniques and application

WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS: CLASSIFICATION

• Physiological and anatomical biophysics

• Molecular and Subcellular Biophysics

BIOPHYSICS: FIRST BIOPHYSICISTS

 Epicurus, 3rd century BCE

 Heraclitus, 5th century BCE

 Galen, 2nd century CE

 Leonardo da Vinci, 16th century CE

 Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, 17th century CE

 Luigi Galvani, 18th century CE

BIOPHYSICS: DISCOVERIES RELATING TO BIOPHYSICS

• First law of thermodynamics

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