After the successful completion of te course the students will be familiar with the basic structural units of the cell and their function, thwy will have been introduced to basic imaging and investigational techniques of biophysical processes and will know basic electrophysiology. Moreover, they will be able to quantify basic biophysical functions in the cell.

Introductory concepts: Chemical bonds (inter-atomic potentials of weak and strong bonds, non-central forces, bond energy, spring constant and bond elastic limit) rate of change of chemical reactions (free, internal energy, thermodynamics-statistical mechanics, kinetics of chemical reactions, radiation energy). Transport processes: diffusion, viscosity, heat transfer. Experimental techniques in biophysics: X-ray diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical tweezers, patch clamping. Biological polymers: nucleic acids (DNA, RNA) and the conformation and folding of proteins. Biological membranes: background, chemical composition and structure of organic membranes, physics of biological membranes. Excitable biological membranes: diffusion and ion mobility, resting potential, action potential, Hodgkin-Huxley model, neural impulse propagation (cable model, FitzHugh-Nagumo model)

30-09-2016