Lecturer: Carlos Penedo-Esteiro
Institution: St Andrews
Hours Equivalent Credit: 33
Assessment: Attendance, news and views article.
This is a final year undergraduate course organised by University of St Andrews.
Course Summary
The module will expose students to the exciting opportunities offered by applying photonics methods and technology to biomedical imaging, sensing and detection. A rudimentary biological background will be provided where needed. Topics include fluorescence microscopy and assays including time resolved applications, super-resolution imaging, optical tweezers for cell sorting and DNA manipulation, single molecule studies, optogenetics and methods to measure forces in biology.
Lecturer: Andrei Pisliakov
Institution: Dundee
Hours Equivalent Credit: 22
This is an undergraduate course run by the University of Dundee.
Course Summary
An overview of fundamental areas of biology for students with little biology background, emphasizing evolution, connections between length and time scales in biology, and the potential role of physics to inform biology at all of these different scales. Introduction: what is life? Darwin’s theory of evolution, Mendelian genetics, tree of life, basics of prokaryotic cells, basics of eukaryotic cells. Biochemistry and molecular biology: structure and functions of proteins, structure of DNA, DNA replication, transcription, translation, protein folding. Cell biology: membrane structure, membrane transport, metabolism and mitochondria, cytoskeleton, cell cycle. Multicellular organisms: germ cells, fertilisation, development. Populations: introduction to ecology, population genetics and evolution.
