27 papers · ranked by Valyu relevance
Huan-Xiang Zhou
'Biophysics' implies physics applied to biology: is that what biophysics is? Yes, biophysics is the study of biological systems and biological processes using physics-based methods or based on physical principles. What does physics have to offer biology? Physics provides the fundamental theories for understanding…
Eva Bártová, Stanislav Kozubek, Aleš Kovařík
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies the theories and methods of physics to understand biological systems. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from the molecular mechanisms within cells to the physical properties of organisms and ecosystems. The goal of biophysics is to uncover the physical…
Tjaart P. J. Krüger, B.T. Sewell, Lawrence Norris
This is a provisional status report of biophysics activities in Africa. We start by highlighting the importance of biophysics research and development for every country's economy in the 21st century. Yet, the amount of biophysics activity in African countries varies between woefully little to nothing at all. We present…
Tjaart P. J. Krüger
This report is a serious call to scientists, innovators, investors, and policymakers to invest in the development of biophysics in Africa. The complex problems of our day demand multidisciplinary approaches, and biophysics offers training in much-needed multi- and cross-disciplinary thinking. Biophysics is a research…
Daniele Cozzoli
This essay focuses on Mario Ageno (1915-1992), initially director of the physics laboratory of the Italian National Institute of Health and later professor of biophysics at Sapienza University of Rome. A physicist by training, Ageno became interested in explaining the special characteristics of living organisms origin…
Pavle Andjus
Dedicated to Greta Pifat-Mrzljak (1939-2009) and Bogdan Beleslin (1935-2002) The beginnings of Regional Biophysics Conference This issue of the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ) presents a series of articles from the Regional Biophysics Conference (RBC) organized in Kladovo, Serbia on September 3-7, 2012. This was the…
Elizabeth C Moylan
This editorial celebrates the re-launch of PMC Biophysics previously published by PhysMath Central, in its new format as BMC Biophysics published by BioMed Central with an expanded scope and Editorial Board. BMC Biophysics will fill its own niche in the BMC series alongside complementary companion journals including…
Huan-Xiang Zhou
Welcome to PMC Biophysics, an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal devoted to biological physics in all its myriad forms. The journal has been launched in response to two significant trends in publishing and research. Firstly, the open access movement is gathering strength. Pioneered by PMC Biophysics's…
Mark C. Leake
The esteemed physicist Erwin Schrödinger, whose name is associated with the most notorious equation of quantum mechanics, also wrote a brief essay entitled "What is Life?", asking: "How can the events in space and time which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for by physics and…
Leake, Mark C
Mark Leake holds the Anniversary Chair of Biological Physics and is the Coordinator of the Physics of Life Group at the University of York. He is also Chair of the UK Physics of Life Network (PoLNET). He heads an interdisciplinary research team in the field of single-molecule biophysics using cutting-edge biophotonics…
Jack Shepherd, Mark Leake
British biophysics has a rich tradition of scientific invention and innovation, on several occasions resulting in new technologies which have transformed biological insight, such as rapid DNA sequencing, high-precision super-resolution and label-free microscopy hardware, new approaches for high-throughput and…
D. Thirumalai
Concepts rooted in physics are becoming increasingly important in biology as we transition to an era in which quantitative descriptions of all processes from molecular to cellular level are needed. In this essay I discuss two unexpected findings of universal behavior, uncommon in biology, in the self-assembly of…
Kazeem Olanrewaju, Ashlee N. Ford Versypt
The human physiological system consists of several biological units carefully organized to engage in a bio-physicochemical interaction with complex fluids transporting nutritional and life-supporting species (oxygen and carbon dioxide) needed for the proper functioning of the body. The nutritional species are products…
Authors not listed
Free energy calculations based on molecular dynamics simulations offer a quantitative assessment of biomolecule binding and stability. This chapter discusses accurately estimating the free energy differences employing nonequilibrium alchemy. We cover the theoretical background, technical aspects of free energy…
Viet Sang Doan, Ibraheem Alshareedah, Anurag Singh, Priya R. Banerjee + 1 more
The internal microenvironment of a living cell is heterogeneous and comprises a multitude of organelles with distinct biochemistry. Amongst them are biomolecular condensates, which are membrane-less, phase-separated compartments enriched in system-specific proteins and nucleic acids. The heterogeneity of the cell…
Frederic Català-Castro, Santiago Ortiz-Vásquez, Carmen Martínez-Fernández, Fabio Pezzano + 8 more
Recording the mechanical response of biological samples, the cell’s interior and complex fluids in general, would enable deeper understanding of cellular differentiation, ageing and drug discovery. Here, we present a time-shared optical tweezer microrheology (TimSOM) pipeline to determine the frequency- and…
Ping Liu, Weilin Lin, Fabian Abele, Marcel Hanke + 3 more
Upon subjecting biomolecules to non-equilibrium conditions, many biochemical and biophysical features such as biomolecular diffusion, protein folding, interaction kinetics, as well as enzyme-catalyzed reactions can be characterized in an aqueous solution. However, most assays under non-equilibrium conditions cannot be…
Iliya D. Stoev, Madison Bolger-Munro, Antonio Minopoli, Susan Wagner + 7 more
Determination of the rheological properties of cells is known to require active measurements, which largely depend on the internalisation of mechanical probes. Here we circumvent this problem via the introduction of Rheo-FLUCS: an active, yet probe-free approach that leverages light-induced flows to access the…
Authors not listed
The formation and modulation of biomolecular condensates as well as their structural and dynamic properties are determined by an intricate interplay of different driving forces, which down at the microscopic scale involve molecular interactions of the biological macromolecules and the surrounding solvent and ions.…
Bercem Dutagaci, Grzegorz Nawrocki, Joyce Goodluck, Lisa J. Lapidus + 1 more
Phase separation of globular RNA and positively charged proteins is reported from a combination of coarse-grained simulations parametrized based on atomistic simulations, theory informed by the coarse-grained simulations, and experimental validation via confocal microscopy and FRET spectroscopy. Phase separation is…
Aida Naghilou, Oskar Armbruster, Alireza Mashaghi
Comprehensive understanding of dynamics and disease-associated solidification of biomolecular condensates is closely tied to analysis of their mechanical characteristics. Despite recent technical advances in rheological studies of condensates, these still vastly rely on methods restricted to small forces, rendering…
Matthias Pöllmann, Katja Zieske
Biomolecular condensates are assemblies of proteins or nucleic acids that exhibit liquid-like properties and organize intracellular biochemical reactions within many cells. Some condensates require membrane association, and we previously developed an assay to reconstitute biomolecular condensates in the presence of…
Authors not listed
Active assembly of matter is a defining trait of living systems, enabling the creation of far-from-equilibrium materials essential for the functionality of life. This is achieved through energy-dissipative, multi-step processes facilitated by various biomolecular agents for chemical and mechanical assembly of matter.…
Jing Ling, Yong Du, W. Peter Wuelfing, Nicole Buist + 4 more
Protein drugs exhibit challenges of biophysical and biochemical instability due to their structural complexity and rich dynamics. Solid-state biologics aim to enhance stability by increasing molecular rigidity within the formulation matrix, representing a primary category of drug products alongside sterile liquid…
Alan U. Sabino, Miguel F. S. Vasconcelos, Misaki Y. Sittoni, Willian W. Lautenschläger + 3 more
Randomness is an unavoidable feature of inner cellular environment and its effects propagate to higher levels of living matter organization such as cells, tissues, and organisms. Approaching those systems experimentally to understand their dynamics is a complex task because of the plethora of compounds interacting in a…
Authors not listed
Using the CHARMM36 lipid force field, this investigation employs atomistic molecular dynamics simulation to examine how variations in phosphatidylcholine (PC) lipid composition in murine splenic cancer cells affect membrane properties. While cancer-related alterations in membrane lipid composition are well-established…
Authors not listed
Since their discovery in 2004, there has been remarkable progress in research on nanomotors starting with the elucidation of different propulsion mechanisms to the study of their collective behavior, culminating in investigations into their applications in biomedicine and environmental remediation. This perspective…