Statistical physics and biology: a stimulating partnership

by Terry Hwa (San Diego)

Thursday 13 Jun 2013, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G.Marconi)

Many physicists have turned to the study of biological phenomena in the past decade. Methods of statistical physics have proven to be helpful in solving a variety of biological problems; at the same time biological systems have presented many challenges to stimulate new approaches to studying complex systems. In this talk, I will describe a few of the many examples encountered during the course of my personal exploration in biology. One example is at the molecular scale: I will describe how a maximum entropy principle can turn variations in the sequence composition of related proteins into a procedure to inform the prediction of protein folding and protein-protein interactions. A second example is at the cellular level: I will describe the application of phenomenological "growth laws" to make quantitative predictions on bacterial response to genetic and environmental perturbations. A third example is at the population level: I will describe dynamic mechanisms to generate bi! ological patterns such as stripes and spots. The growth and movement of cells play crucial roles in the formation of such patterns and their descriptions require expansion of ideas originally put forth by Alan Turing.