General schematic program of the course
The aim of the course is to describe and develop theoretical concepts and approaches to biological systems. Particular attention will be devoted to the role of fluctuations, response and amplification processes and collective phenomena
Parte I: the role of noise, signal/noise discrimination
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: diffusion processes
Random walk, Standard and anomalous diffusion, Langevin equation, diffusion equation, Fick's Law, Fokker-Planck equation, Arrhenius law
simple diffusion processes in biology
Motility and chemotaxis in bacteria - processes of molecule counting
Photoreception
Parte II: Cooperativity and collective behavior
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: Ordering and collective phenomena in condensed matter
(phase transitions, Ising model, Heisenberg model, correlation and response functions)
Biological Networks: proteins, neurons
Active matter, cells, bacteria and animal groups
Information flow and efficient representations, information transmission and collective response
The inverse problem and methods of statistical inference
Texts:
Main reference books
Bialek W., Biophysics, searching for principles, Princeton University Press,
http://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/PHY562.html
Nelson PC, Biological Physics, (Freeman & Co., 2004)
Other books, papers used for specific subjects/lectures are mentioned in the description below of individual lectures. Most of this material can be found here
http://chimera.roma1.infn.it/IRENE/CorsoBiofisica/
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/blrqc7osyxbj9vj/AADoxCgKTeLCI2lDGwHyeKIja?dl=0