Can anyone explain ways to link physics to molecular biology (Biochemistry, genetics, etc). It's a pretty open-ended topic but I have a degree in Molecular Medicine and am interested in physics. Anyone have any ideas on how to link these two? It might sound stupid but this is only out of interest
>>7660671
The connection to physics is mostly through statistical mechanics (and quantum to a lesser extent) which is used to develop models and methods in chemical solutions thermodynamics that is applied to biochemical systems including surface science and macroscopic systems (molecular thermodynamics models applied to chem. sol. thermo. methods). Textbooks:
>Garland, Dill K A , Bromberg S Molecular Driving Forces; Statistical Thermodynamics In Chemistry And Biology
Written by physicists, CS and a chemical engineer. This is one of my favourite textbooks. A similar text
>Daan Frenkel, Berend Smit Understanding Molecular Simulation, Second Edition_ From Algorithms to Applications (Computational Science Series 1)
written by "biophysicists" I would never recommend this disconjointed clusterfuck, but I understand it has some reputation in the field.
>>7660691
*Switched my titles around accidentally.
>>7660671
bump for santa
>>7660691
Thanks a lot anon
>>7660671
One degree that fits right in to what you're looking for would be biophysics.
>>7660691
Five-star post. Any biophysics graduate program that's worth its salt uses Dill's textbook. IMO, statistical mechanics and extending its laws to thermodynamics should be the core of a graduate curriculum in biophysics.
OP, another application of physics to biochemistry and molecular biology is structural biology: physical tools and principles are applied to solve three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules at atomic resolution. The three most utilized techniques are x-ray crystallography, electron microscopy (EM), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). You won't be doing any ground-breaking physics -- most of the "physics" was worked out in the late-19th or early- to mid-20th centuries -- but there absolutely is some understanding of mid- to upper-level undergraduate math and physics that is necessary to be well-versed in these techniques. X-ray crystallography was the most prominent technique in the 20th century, so the process of solving a structure (that would involve physics) has been automated and can be done using computer programs. In other words, you really don't need to know much physics to work in crystallography, nowadays. But, EM has undergone a revolution in recent years, and there are many labs that are working on methods development (primarily theoretical and computational). NMR will always be a smaller, more niche field because of the limitations of the technique (it can't be applied to larger molecules, and solving a structural can't really be automated like crystallography), but the NMR guys are hardcore biophysicists.
>>7660671
The molecular kinetics is basically entirely physics.
>>7660671
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophysics
>>7660671
Well gene guns are pretty physical, if ya ask me.
On a more serious note, things like auto-extracting algae are in development (last I read) using froth flotation. Not sure how they're doing, I read the paper pretty recently but it was a few years old. Would that count?
>>7662647
this
that father-son combo who came up with x-ray crystallography are gods
biophysics/quantum effects had a lot to do with assigning structural information to DNA ( re plane stacking and diffraction )
physics serves as the basis of the protein folding problem
themodynamics forms the basis of pharmacokinetics/enzyme-receptor relationships
iuno
