INTRODUCTION TO

BIOPHYSICS

Prepared by
Nurdiana Samsulrizal &
Dzulsuhaimi Daud

LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students will be able to:
Define the fundamental concepts of
biophysics.
Understand the integration of physical
theory into biological processes.
Identify the biophysics tools for biology and
health industry.

INTRODUCTION
Understanding biology using some ideas
from physics/chemistry/maths etc.
Need to know biology in order to do
biophysics.
Using physics to understand biology.
Not biology to understand physics!!

WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS
Physics for biologists, or
methods applied to biology

physical

It is a modern, interdisciplinary field of

science leading to new approaches for our
understanding of biological functions.
Paradigm: Biological system is not simply
the sum of its molecular components but is
rather their functional integration
MATHEMATICS + PHYSICS + BIOLOGY + CHEMISTRY

WHAT IS BIOPHYSICS?
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary field which
applies techniques from the physical sciences
to understanding biological structure and
function (British Biological Society).
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that
applies the theories and methods of physical
sciences, to questions of biology (Wikipedia).
Biophysics is the application of the analytical
viewpoints, methods and/or instrumentation of
physics to the investigation of biological problems
(European Biophysics Society).

STUDY OF BIOPHYSICS
Biology and molecular biology
Gene regulation, single protein dynamics,
bioenergetics and biomechanics.

Structural biology
Nucleic acid, lipids, carbohydrates and their
complexes.

Bioinformatics
Sequence alignment, structural alignment and
protein structure prediction.

Medicine and neuroscience

Membrane permittivity, gene therapy

Pharmacology
Channel biology, biomolecular interactions,
cellular membranes.

HOW BIOPHYSICS HELP

US?

Biophysics able to explain the process

asked by biologist such as;
How do protein fold?
How are genes turned on and off?
How do biomolecules assemble and
interact?
What is molecular structure of cell
membrane?
How do animals respond to sound and
smell?
How do cell move?
How does the nervous system work?

HOW DO PROTEIN FOLD?

X-ray crystallography
Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance
Scanning Probe
Microscopy
Recombinant DNA
Computational/images
system

NUCLEAR MAGNETIC
RESONANCE
SPECTROSCOPY

HOW DO BIOMOLECULES
ASSEMBLE AND INTERACT?

Synthesize of Proteins

HOW DO BIOMOLECULES
ASSEMBLE AND INTERACT?

APPLICATION OF
BIOPHYSICS
Quantitative analysis of the physical

and
chemical aspect of the functions of biological
molecules and organism.
Theoretical
biophysics
tries
to
use
mathematical and physical models to explain
life processes.
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.
Radiation biophysics studies the response of
organisms to various kinds of radiations.

APPLICATION OF
BIOPHYSICS

Paper chromatography, a direct development

of adsorption techniques, is widely used to
analyse 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
protein..

APPLICATION OF
BIOPHYSICS

Measuring blood pressure by

sphygmomanometer.
Computational tomography (CT) scan to
produce cross
sectional images.
X-ray images widely used in medicine and
dentistry to
produce images of the internal structure of
objects.
Ultrasound sonography imaging technique
that does
not use ionising radiation instead it utilises high
frequency acoustic vibrations.

Fluorescence
microscopy
of
endothelial
cells
using three labels.
Red
labels
the
mitochondria, green
labels the F-actine
cytoskeleton
and
blue
labels
the
nucleus.

REVIEW
Physics

Mathema
tics
Chemistr
y

Biomolecular
interactions

Gene therapy

BIOLOG
Y
Regulation of
gene

Protein
structure &
functions