Biophysics

专业详情

Biophysics Is

a discipline that bridges and includes both the biological sciences and the physical sciences. Biophysics is concerned with physical and chemical explanations of living processes, especially at the cellular and molecular levels. The past 20 years have witnessed a revolution in biological sciences, and biophysics has played an important role in that revolution. Detailed molecular descriptions are emerging for genetic elements and for the mechanisms that control their propagation and expression. Protein structure, nucleic acid structure, enzyme mechanisms, the phenomena underlying cellular behavior, excitable phenomena in nerve, muscle, and visual cells, and integrative neural phenomena all have been subject to intense biophysical study. Physicists and other scientists with strong backgrounds in mathematics, chemistry, and physics have played dominant roles in these developments; they will continue to contribute as more detailed descriptions become available and increasingly complex phenomena are studied.

The Penn Undergraduate Biophysics Major Is

designed to provide education in depth in the physical sciences in association with an understanding of biological phenomena and problems, and to provide the background necessary for understanding the sophisticated methods of contemporary biophysical and biomedical research. The goal is to prepare graduates who can go on for graduate or professional study, or who can enter immediately into professional positions in biomedical research and development and in biotechnology. The choices made by past biophysics majors reflect the breadth of the major. Some have pursued doctoral study in areas of biological research such a biophysics, biochemistry, chemistry, marine biology, molecular biology, neurobiology, physics and physiology. Others have attended professional schools in business, education, law, and medicine. The biophysics program is best suited for students with keen interest and ability in the physical sciences combined with the desire to explore fascinating and important topics in the life sciences.