BIOENGINEERING THERMODYNAMICS

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This course provides a mathematically rigorous and quantitative coverage of the fundamentals of thermodynamics with applications drawn from contemporary bioengineering problems. Fundamental topics will include the Zeroth, First and Second Law, Entropy Inequality, Gibbs and Helmholtz Free Energies, The Third Law, Maxwell Relations, chemical potential, equilibrium, phase transitions, solution thermodynamics, protein-ligand binding and statistical mechanics. Advanced topics will include transcription factor-DNA binding, nucleic acid hybridization, translation initiation and genetic circuits. The course will cover the role that thermodynamics plays in molecular engineering and synthetic biology.