From Basic Physics To Biology and Biological Computation

Biology can seem like a messy hodge-podge of biochemical processes mediated by highly complex macromolecular machinery. Although there is some truth to that picture, very generic physical processes underlie—and explain—key aspects of cell biology. The talk will describe simple equilibrium and non-equilibrium physics that provide a powerful lens on cell biology phenomena ranging from molecular transport to "proofreading" of genetic information. In addition, the statistical physics of trajectories (simple diffusion and beyond) will be exploited to enhance sampling for computer simulations of detailed chemical and biological processes. The generality of the sampling approach enables its application to stochastic systems ranging from molecular to cellular scales.