What is Biophysics?
Modern biophysics combines state-of-the-art physical measurements with computational models to understand the detailed physical mechanisms underlying the behavior of complex biological systems. Biophysics is a growing enterprise world-wide, driven primarily by the widespread realization of the major contribution that can be made to biological science by a combination of truly state-of-the-art physical measurements with modern molecular biology. Membership in the Biophysical Society is now 7000. The field occupies a unique and central position at the intersection of the biological, chemical, physical, and computational sciences. Biophysics is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Biophysics takes a quantitative, physical, non-phenomenological approach to biology that is firmly rooted in the principles of condensed-phase physics and physical chemistry. Biophysicists are driven primarily by their curiosity about how biological systems work at the molecular level. While they routinely employ th
Biophysics applies the principles and techniques of physics to biology. More exactly, biophysicists use physics and its related sciences of physical chemistry, electrical engineering, mathematics, and computer science to research basic biological questions. Sometimes, though, the physics necessary to answer a biology research question hasn’t been developed yet, so a biophysicist may do basic research in the physical sciences as well. The problems biophysicists study are the ones that can benefit from a physical and mathematical approach, and usually involve energy transformations, radiation, electrical and magnetic fields, or information processing. The biological problems tackled by biophysicists can range from the structure of small molecules to ecology or evolutionary theory. Most biophysicists work on problems of vision, photosynthesis, muscle contraction, ion pumps, nerves, or the determination of molecular structures. Biophysics is very similar to bioengineering, from which it di
Biophysics is that branch of knowledge that applies the principles of physics and chemistry and the methods of mathematical analysis and computer modeling to understand how biological systems work. Biophysics is a molecular science. It seeks to explain biological function in terms of the molecular structures and properties of specific molecules. The size of these molecules varies dramatically, from small fatty acids and sugars (~1 nm = 10-9 m), to macromolecules like proteins (5-10 nm), starches (>1000 nm), and the enormously elongated DNA molecules (over 10,000,000 nm = 1 cm long but only 2 nm wide; imagine a piece of string 45 miles long!). These molecules, the sole building blocks of living organisms, assemble into cells, tissues, and whole organisms by forming complex individual structures with dimensions of 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 nm and larger. Proteins assemble into the casein micelles of milk, which aggregate to form the curd of cheese; proteins and ribonucleic acids assemble int
The modern health sciences are based upon biochemistry bio meaning life and chemistry being the chemical makeup, hence the chemical makeup of life. Biochemistry deals in those things that are quantitative; those things that are measurable and provable. However, all the things that make up life are not always quantitative (or quantifiable). How do you measure a thought? a feeling? the look in a child’s eyes on Christmas morning? How do you measure the soul? Those stuck in the biochemical paradigm will tell you that if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t matter. For years, acupuncture was thought of by western science as a curiosity, until we discovered the actual paths of subtle energy that flows through our bodies. These paths are called meridians. They were discovered six thousand years ago by the Chinese. We discovered them in the eighties using high tech devices that could read minute quantities of energy. Though they are measurable, biochemistry still ignores these subtle energies. Ye
Biophysics is a branch of the sciences which applies chemistry and physics to the study of living organisms. For example, a biophysicist might explore cell signaling, in which cells transmit chemicals to each other to stimulate various responses. This field is extremely varied, with a number of applications, and new topics in biophysics are constantly being developed and discussed by researchers and other professionals in the field. In molecular biophysics, researchers study topics at the molecular level, including the structure and function of molecules. Molecules are the building blocks of complex organisms, making the study of molecules important to people who want to understand how entire organisms work. Molecular systems are also very complicated and interconnected, furnishing a huge number of topics for study and exploration, and often one discovery uncovers a multitude of new questions. In physiological biophysics, also known as classical biophysics, researchers apply physics to
