An introduction to self-organization and processes in the living cell from the theoretical physics perspective. The course will be based on case studies from the fields of photosynthesis, vision, cell signaling, cell motion, gene regulation, protein folding, and neural information processing. Physical concepts, mathematical techniques, and computational methods required in modern biophysics will be introduced. Emphasis will be on the multi-scale organization and multi-physics mechanisms of living systems. The latter mechanisms link various domains of theoretical physics like classical molecular dynamics, elasticity theory, electrostatics, stochastic mechanics of classical and quantum systems, molecular electronics, theory of radiation processes, and non-linear dynamics.

• Course Outline

• Classes

• Projects

• Brownian Ratched Model

• Textbook: Neural Computation

• Homework (Problem #2 is posted!)