Biophysics is one of the newest branches in physics, where the knowledge of physics is quantitatively applied to biological systems. This is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field, currently listed as one of the high-demand fields in the United States by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Click here to see Why you should pursue a career in Biophyscics.

Biophysics is an extremely broad field ranging from global warming to the human nervous system. During the last two decades, a number of biophysics methods have been developed to study individual biomolecules. These single-molecule biophysics techniques provide the ability to monitor biological processes at the molecular level without ensemble averaging.

The Single Molecule Biophysics Lab (SMB Lab) at Bridgewater State introduces this promising field to our students.  The lab is located on the second floor of the Dana Mohler-Faria Science Center. We are proud to say that we house a dual-beam optical tweezers set-up built entirely by our undergraduate researchers to conduct state-of-the-art single-molecule biophysics research. We use this optical tweezers set-up to trap a single DNA molecule and study how cancer drugs and prospective cancer drugs interact with DNA. 

If you are a student at Bridgewater State University and are interested in gaining experience in instrumentation and research please email Dr. Thaya (thaya@bridgew.edu) expressing your interest. We have projects with several different aspects including biochemistry, electronics, optical alignment, and computer programming. There are additional possibilities for summer research projects at Northeastern and Brandeis for promising students.