Biological Physics
Spring 2027
Biological Physics
How does a bacterium find food in a world without inertia? Why does a cell burst in pure water? How can entropy create order? And how do identical cells organise themselves into a tissue with a shape?
In this course you use statistical physics, soft matter and mechanics to build quantitative models of living systems on scales from 1 nm to a few hundred micrometres. You test the models against your own measurements and simulations.
Passive and active walkers
Random walks, diffusion, life at low Reynolds number, swimming bacteria and flocks.
Entropy, ions and membranes
Entropic forces, osmosis, Nernst and Donnan, ion pumps and the voltage across every cell.
Morphogenesis, mechanobiology and imaging
How cells feel forces and shape tissues, and the new microscopy that lets us watch it.
How the course works
- Lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays 10–12 follow the three blocks above.
- A weekly exercise (about 2 h) is due on Wednesday and reviewed on Thursday. Ten of thirteen must be passed.
- Three projects on current research problems using real research tools. P1 is the same for everyone. P2 and P3 are chosen from the electives. Each project ends with a report and an oral defense, where you present your result and are questioned on your understanding of it.
- LLMs are expected tools in this course, for analysis and for writing. See Working with LLMs. What is assessed is what you understand, and that is checked orally.
- Final oral exam in June sets the grade.
The textbook is Philip Nelson, Biological Physics: Energy, Information, Life, chapters 1–7 and 11.1–11.2. The week-by-week plan is in the schedule.
See a neuron fire
A demo project from earlier years: two-photon calcium imaging of neurons in the brain of a living mouse, and a simulation of the action potential that explains what you see.
Open the demo