Modeling the Living Cell

4 Credits.

From the molecular to the cellular scale, quantitative modeling forces us to formalize how the laws of physics constrain the behavior of atoms, macromolecules, and cells as they interact in complex, multi-component environments. We will learn how models obeying Newtonian Mechanics at the atomic scale can be mapped to coarse-grained or continuum models that predict the dynamics of protein populations, membrane surfaces, and fibers and filaments at the whole-cell scale. We will study equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems, with connections to experimental measurements. Students will implement and validate modern algorithms used at different resolutions in molecular and cellular biophysics, including ML methods for training and analyzing models. Students design their own final projects.