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Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology

The Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology serves physical and computer science students who are interested in applying their knowledge to biology, as well as students with a biological background interested in instrumentation, computation, and physical aspects of biology. The cooperation and cross-training of scientists with engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences backgrounds has infused biology with powerful technologies and exciting new paradigms. Close interactions between theory and experiments have led to fundamental advances in our understanding of the physical basis of life. Now biology is undergoing a transformation with application of modern computational methods and advanced experimental tools to solve problems of unprecedented complexity.

The Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology is interdisciplinary, consisting of over 40 faculty members who have their home departments in Biochemistry, Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, Computer Engineering, Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Microbiology, and the Medical School. The Center serves as the interface between faculty research programs in experimental biophysics and quantitative and computational biology, with common interests in elucidating the physical basis of biological phenomena. The graduate degree program of the Center offers training in all aspects of this rapidly growing area.

MCB Faculty Named Directors of LAS Graduate Programs

Professor Satish Nair of the Department of Biochemistry has been appointed Director of the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology. Professor Nair has been serving as Interim Director since November 2015. Professor Martha Gillette of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology has been...

Virus Simulation

Klaus Schulten, professor of physics, chemistry, and biophysics and computational biology, and colleagues this week presented the first computer simulation of an entire life form, a virus. The full study will appear in the March issue of the journal Structure.