Biophysical Science

The course aims to provide a general introduction to cellular and molecular biology and to contextualize the use of modern physics—through its quantitative methods and approaches—to describe biological systems and their complexity, from the molecular scale to the cellular and tissue scales.

Another fundamental topic covered is the quantification of phenomena, their physical interpretation, and their physical-mathematical modeling. The course provides an introduction to the philosophy and the full range of topics in this master’s program, which focuses on the study of the physical principles underlying the organization and dynamics of living and complex matter.

• Understand the biological cell, its molecular components, and its main functions.
• To understand how physical and chemical interactions influence the properties of biomolecules (diffusion, self-assembly, conformational changes, etc.), related structures (cytoskeleton, cytoplasm, nucleus and nucleoplasm, membranes, macromolecular droplets, ...) and other phenomena (intracellular transport, cytoskeletal dynamics, nuclear organization, cell mitosis, cell motility, etc.), in vitro (biomimetic approach), within the cell, and between cells.
• Identify and monitor the relevant parameters and orders of magnitude characteristic of these properties, assemblies, and phenomena.
• Understand the principles of the experimental methods used to measure these parameters.
• Link physicochemical phenomena to biological observations in vitro and in vivo (in bacteria, viruses, circulating or adherent cells, etc.)
• Extract information, analyze data, and learn methodological concepts from scientific articles to quantify biological processes, working in small groups of students in class or at home.
• Learning the interdisciplinary language of biology at the new frontiers of the physical sciences and the science of matter.

Bachelor's degree in Physics, Physics and Chemistry, or equivalent