PHYS 498 QB

Subject offerings of new and developing areas of knowledge in physics intended to augment the existing curriculum. See Class Schedule or departmental course information for topics and prerequisites. Course Information: 1 to 4 undergraduate hours. 1 to 4 graduate hours. May be repeated in the same or separate terms if topics vary.

QUANTATITIVE BIOLOGY: Course description: This course covers the emerging biological physics of living matter. Using recent literature, problem sets and numerical simulations students will explore biological systems at multiple levels of organization from gene regulation to single cells and multi-species ecosystems. With a focus on microbial systems, we will study how information is processed at the level of genes and signaling pathways through examples from gene regulation and bacterial chemotaxis. At the population level we will study examples of eco-evolutionary dynamics in microbial systems with an emphasis on quantitatively understanding these emergent biological phenomena. The course includes mathematical techniques from differential equations, linear algebra and basic statistics as well as computational aspects.