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biophysics

 
Dictionary: bi·o·phys·ics   (bī'ō-fĭz'ĭks) pronunciation
n. (used with a sing. verb)

The science that deals with the application of physics to biological processes and phenomena.

biophysical bi'o·phys'i·cal adj.
biophysically bi'o·phys'i·cal·ly adv.
biophysicist bi'o·phys'i·cist n.

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Sci-Tech Encyclopedia: Biophysics
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A hybrid science involving the overlap of physics, chemistry, and biology. A dominant aspect is the use of the ideas and methods of physics and chemistry to study and explain the structures of living organisms and the mechanisms of life processes. The recognition of biophysics as a separate field is relatively recent, having been brought about, in part, by the invention of physical tools such as the electron microscope, the ultracentrifuge, and the electronic amplifier, which greatly facilitate biophysical research. These tools are peculiarly adapted to the study of problems of great current importance to medicine, problems related to virus diseases, cancer, heart disease, and the like.

The major areas of biophysics are the following:

Molecular biophysics has to do with the study of large molecules and particles of comparable size which play important roles in biology. The most important physical tools for such research are the electron microscope, the ultracentrifuge, and the x-ray diffraction camera. See also Molecular biology; Ultracentrifuge; X-ray diffraction.

Radiation biophysics consists of the study of the response of organisms to ionizing radiations, such as alpha, beta, gamma, and x-rays, and to ultraviolet light. The biological responses are death of cells and tissues, if not of whole organisms, and mutation, either somatic or genetic.

Physiological biophysics, called by some classical biophysics, is concerned with the use of physical mechanisms to explain the behavior and the functioning of living organisms or parts of living organisms and with the response of living organisms to physical forces.

Mathematical and theoretical biophysics deals primarily with the attempt to explain the behavior of living organisms on the basis of mathematics and physical theory. Biological processes are being examined in terms of thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, and statistical mechanics. Mathematical models are being investigated to see how closely they simulate biological processes. See also Biomechanics; Biopotentials and ionic currents; Mathematical biology; Micromanipulation; Microscope; Muscle proteins; Muscular system; Oximetry; Skeletal system; Space biology.


Dental Dictionary: biophysics
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(bī-ō-fiz′iks)
n

The science dealing with the forces that act on living cells of the body, the relationship between the biologic behavior of living structures and the physical influences to which they are subjected, and the physics of vital processes. Also known as biomechanics.


Discipline concerned with applications of the principles and methods of the physical sciences to biological problems. Biophysics deals with biological functions that depend on physical agents such as electricity or mechanical force, with the interaction of living organisms with physical agents such as light, sound, or ionizing radiation, and with interactions between living things and their environment as in locomotion, navigation, and communication. Its subjects include bone, nerve impulses, muscle, and vision as well as organic molecules, using such tools as paper chromatography and X-ray crystallography.

For more information on biophysics, visit Britannica.com.

The study of the properties of matter and energy in living organisms.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: biophysics
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biophysics, application of various methods and principles of physical science to the study of biological problems. In physiological biophysics physical mechanisms have been used to explain such biological processes as the transmission of nerve impulses, the muscle contraction mechanism, and the visual mechanism. Theoretical biophysics tries to use mathematical and physical models to explain life processes. Radiation biophysics studies the response of organisms to various kinds of radiations. Biophysics has contributed important tools for the study of organic molecules, and especially of large molecules, which play an important part in biological processes. Paper chromatography, a direct development of adsorption techniques, is widely used to analyze tissues for chemical components. X-ray crystallography is used to determine molecular structures and has been useful with such problems as the complex structure of proteins. Among the optical methods used in the study of biological problems are photochemistry, light scattering, absorption spectroscopy (including the use of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation), laser beams, and double refraction birefringence. These techniques and others permit the biophysicist to determine the structure of molecules in plants and animals to a degree not readily possible with ordinary chemical methods.


Science Dictionary: biophysics
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The study of living things using the techniques of physics.

Veterinary Dictionary: biophysics
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The science dealing with the application of physical methods and theories to biological problems.

Wikipedia: Biophysics
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Biophysics (also biological physics) is an interdisciplinary science that employs and develops theories and methods of the physical sciences for the investigation of biological systems [1]. Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms and ecosystems. Biophysical research shares significant overlap with biochemistry, nanotechnology, bioengineering, agrophysics and systems biology.

Molecular biophysics typically addresses biological questions that are similar to those in biochemistry and molecular biology, but the questions are approached quantitatively. Scientists in this field conduct research concerned with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between DNA, RNA and protein biosynthesis, as well as how these interactions are regulated. A great variety of techniques are used to answer these questions.

Fluorescent imaging techniques, as well as electron microscopy, x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) are often used to visualize structures of biological significance. Conformational change in structure can be measured using techniques such as dual polarisation interferometry and circular dichroism. Direct manipulation of molecules using optical tweezers or AFM can also be used to monitor biological events where forces and distances are at the nanoscale. Molecular biophysicists often consider complex biological events as systems of interacting units which can be understood through statistical mechanics, thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. By drawing knowledge and experimental techniques from a wide variety of disciplines, biophysicists are often able to directly observe, model or even manipulate the structures and interactions of individual molecules or complexes of molecules.

In addition to traditional (i.e. molecular and cellular) biophysical topics like structural biology or enzyme kinetics, modern biophysics encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of research. It is becoming increasingly common for biophysicists to apply the models and experimental techniques derived from physics, as well as mathematics and statistics, to larger systems such as tissues, organs, populations and ecosystems.

Contents

Focus as a subfield

Biophysics often does not have university-level departments of its own, but has presence as groups across departments within the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, medicine, pharmacology, physiology, physics, and neuroscience. What follows is a list of examples of how each department applies its efforts toward the study of biophysics. This list is hardly all inclusive. Nor does each subject of study belong exclusively to any particular department. Each academic institution makes its own rules and there is much overlap between departments.

Many biophysical techniques are unique to this field. Research efforts in biophysics are often initiated by scientists who were traditional physicists, chemists, and biologists by training.

Topics in biophysics and related fields

Molecular biophysics

Cellular biophysics

Techniques used in biophysics

Other

Famous biophysicists

Other notable biophysicists

  • Adolf Eugen Fick, responsible for Fick's law of diffusion and a method to determine cardiac output.
  • Howard Berg, characterized properties of bacterial chemotaxis
  • Steven Block, observed the motions of enzymes such as kinesin and RNA polymerase with optical tweezers
  • Carlos Bustamante, known for single-molecule biophysics of molecular motors and biological polymer physics
  • Steven Chu, Nobel laureate who helped develop optical trapping techniques used by many biophysicists
  • Christoph Cremer, overcoming the conventional limit of resolution that applies to light based investigations (the Abbe limit) by a range of different methods
  • Friedrich Dessauer, research on radiation, especially X-rays
  • Julio Fernandez
  • Govindjee, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, research in photosynthesis and photosynthetic mechanisms by fluorescence and NMR methods
  • Enrico Gratton research on frequency domain spectroscopy and correlation spectroscopy on biological and biomedical systems
  • Stefan Hell, developed the principle of STED microscopy
  • Richard Henderson, scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, developed the use of cryo-EM to study membrane protein structures.
  • John J. Hopfield, worked on error correction in transcription and translation (kinetic proof-reading), and associative memory models (Hopfield net)
  • Martin Karplus, research on molecular dynamical simulations of biological macromolecules.
  • Franklin Offner, professor emeritus at Northwestern University of professor of biophysics, biomedical engineering and electronics who developed a modern prototype of the electroencephalograph and electrocardiograph called the dynograph.
  • Nicolas Rashevsky,[3], former Editor of the first journal of mathematical and theoretical biophysics entitled " The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics " (1940—1973) and author of the two-factor model of neuronal excitation, biotopology and organismic set theory.
  • Arieh Warshel, the development of QM/MM approaches, paving the way for a quantitative understanding of enzymatic reactions, and allowing for the first consistent modeling of the catalytic effect of an enzyme; the introduction of MD simulations in biology; the introduction of consistent electrostatic calculations in proteins.
  • Robert Rosen, theoretical biophysicist and mathematical biologist, author of: metabolic-replication systems, categories of metabolic and genetic networks, quantum genetics in terms of von Neumann's approach, non-reductionist complexity theories, dynamical and anticipatory systems in biology.[4]
  • Benoit Roux
  • Mikhail Volkenshtein, Revaz Dogonadze & Zurab Urushadze, authors of the first quantum-mechanical model of enzyme catalysis, supported a theory that enzyme catalysis use quantum-mechanical effects such as tunneling.
  • John Wikswo, research on biomagnetism and cardiac electrophysiology
  • Douglas Warrick, specializing in bird flight (hummingbirds and pigeons)
  • Ernest C. Pollard — founder of the Biophysical Society
  • Marvin Makinen, pioneer of the structural basis of enzyme action
  • Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran, developer of the Ramachandran plot and pioneer of the collagen triple-helix structure prediction
  • Doug Barrick, repeat protein folding
  • Naomi Courtemanche, kinetics of leucine rich repeat protein folding
  • Ellen Kloss, salt-dependence of leucine rich repeat protein folding
  • Bertrand Garcia Moreno E., Dielectric Constant of Globular Protein 'hydrophobic' core
  • Ludwig Brand, Time resolved fluorescence anisotropy decay in Biological systems
  • Eduardo Ducla Soares, founder of IBEB (Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Careers in Biophysics brochure, Biophysical Society https://www.biophysics.org/Portals/1/PDFs/Career%20Center/Careers%20In%20Biophysics.pdf
  2. ^ http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2002/wuthrich-autobio.html
  3. ^ http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/NicolasRashevsky.html
  4. ^ Robert Rosen's Research and Biography http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/RobertRosen.html

References

External links


Translations: Biophysics
Top

Dansk (Danish)
n. - biofysik

Nederlands (Dutch)
biofysica

Français (French)
n. - biophysique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Biophysik

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βιοφυσική (επιστήμη)

Italiano (Italian)
biofisica

Português (Portuguese)
n. - biofísica (f)

Русский (Russian)
биофизика

Español (Spanish)
n. - biofísica

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - biofysik

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
生物物理学

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. pl. - 生物物理學
n. - 生物物理學

한국어 (Korean)
n. pl. - 생물 물리학
n. - 생물 물리학

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 生物物理学

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) علم الطبيعه أو الفيزياء الحيويه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. pl. - ‮מדע יישום חוקי הפיסיקה לתופעות ביולוגיות, ביופיסיקה‬
n. - ‮מדע יישום חוקי הפיסיקה לתופעות ביולוגיות, ביופיסיקה‬


 
 

 

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