The undergraduate concentration in biophysics at Haverford College is described, along with references to similar programs nationwide and reflections on the construction of sample curricula, administrative issues, and resources available for starting up related programs.
REFERENCES
1.
The concentration’s Web site at Haverford College is at http://www.haverford.edu/biochem-biophys/; the physics department’s commentary on the program for physics majors is at http://www.haverford.edu/biochem-biophys/BioPhysics.PhysicsMajors.html.
2.
L. D.
Roelofs
, “Preparing physics majors for secondary-level teaching: The education concentration in the Haverford College physics program
,” Am. J. Phys.
65
, 1057
–1059
(1997
).Also see http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/Roelofs/TeachInts/EdCon.html and http://www.haverford.edu/cmsc/CS-physics.html.
3.
See http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/engineering.html.
4.
H. Varmus, “The impact of physics on biology and medicine,” APS News August/September, 8 (1999).
5.
“Can physics deliver another biological revolution?,” editorial, Nature (London) 397, 89 (1999).
6.
L.
Garwin
, “U.S. universities create bridges between physics and biology
,” Nature (London)
397
, 3
–4
(1999
).7.
B.
Alberts
, “The cell as a collection of protein machines: Preparing the next generation of molecular biologists
,” Cell
92
, 291
–294
(1998
);S. Olson, J. Richardson, and J. Verrengia, “Beyond BIO 101: The transformation of undergraduate biology education,” Howard Hughes Medical Institute, http://www.hhmi.org/BeyondBio101/learning.htm;
J. Junck, “Professional biological societies as communities of and for faculty scholars: Opportunities and challenges,” http://www.wisc.edu/cbe/cels/monograph/mono6x07.htm;
E.
Stokstad
, “Reintroducing the intro course
,” Science
293
, 1608
–1610
(2001
).8.
R. I.
Boughton
, “Materials: An interdisciplinary perspective
,” Am. J. Phys.
69
, 901
–906
(2001
).9.
S. M.
Amador
, “Teaching medical physics to general audiences
,” Biophys. J.
66
, 2217
–2221
(1994
),also available via the Biophysical Society On-Line Biophysics Textbook at http://www.biophysics.org/btol/BJ-Teach.html;
W. P.
Henry
and J. P.
Wikswo
, “A simple integrated circuit model of propagation along an excitable axon
,” Am. J. Phys.
64
(5
), 602
–606
(1996
);M. M. Sternheim and J. W. Kane, General Physics (Wiley, New York 1991);
J. R. Cameron, J. G. Skofronick, R. M. Grant, and E. Siegel, Medical Physics: Physics of the Body (Medical Physics Publishers, Madison, WI, 1992);
J. A. Tuszynski, Biomedical Applications for Introductory Physics (Wiley, New York, 2001);
S. A. Kane, Introduction to Physics in Modern Medicine (Taylor and Francis, London, in press).
10.
G. B. Benedek and F. M. H. Villars, Physics, with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology (AIP Press, New York, 2000);
C. Kittel and H. Kroemer, Thermal Physics (Freeman, New York, 1995);
K. E. Van Holde, W. C. Johnson, and P. S. Ho, Principles of Physical Biochemistry (Prentice–Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1998);
M. Daune, Molecular Biophysics: Structures in Motion (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999).
11.
See the URL http://www.biophysics.org/products/programs.htm.
12.
See listings for Physics 320b and 230b at http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/course_materials/physcourses.html.
13.
Some recent texts include R. H. Austin and S. Chan, Biophysics for Physicists (World Scientific, River Edge, NJ, 1998);
P. R. Bergethon, The Physical Basis of Biochemistry: The Foundation of Molecular Biophysics (Springer, New York, 1998);
C. R. Cantor and P. R. Schimmel, Biophysical Chemistry (Freeman, San Francisco, 1980);
P. Davidovits, Physics in Biology and Medicine (Harcourt Academic, San Diego, 2001);
R. Glaser, Biophysics (Springer, New York, 2001);
R. Nossal and H. Lecar, Molecular and Cell Biophysics (Addison–Wesley, Redwood City, CA, 1991);
C. J. Pennycuick, Newton Rules Biology: A Physical Approach to Biological Problems (Oxford U.P., Oxford, 1992);
C. Sybesma, Biophysics, An Introduction (Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, 1989);
T. F. Weiss, Cellular Biophysics (MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1996);
E. Yeargers, Basic Biophysics for Biology (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 1992).
14.
Physics of Biological Systems: From Molecules to Species, edited by H. Flyvbjerg et al. (Springer, Berlin, 1997);
Physical Theory in Biology: Foundations and Explorations, edited by C. J. Lunsden, W. A. Brandts, and L. E. H. Trainor (World Scientific, Singapore, 1997);
Biological Physics, edited by E. V. Mielczarek, E. Greenbaum, and R. S. Knox (AIP, New York, 1993).
15.
See the listing of biophysics courses at http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/Course_Materials/Phys320/biophysicscourses.html.
16.
V. A.
Bloomfield
, “Statistical thermodynamics of helix-coil transitions in biopolymers
,” Am. J. Phys.
67
(12
), 1212
–1215
(1999
);C. L. Brooks, III, M. Karplus, and B. M. Pettitt, Proteins: A Theoretical Perspective for Dynamics, Structure and Thermodynamics (Wiley, New York, 1988);
J. A. McCammon and S. C. Harvey, Dynamics of Proteins and Nucleic Acids (Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, 1987).
17.
M. N. Jones and D. Chapman, Micelles, Monolayers and Biomembranes (Wiley–Liss, New York, 1995).
18.
D. W. Mount, Bioinformatics: Sequence and Genome Analysis (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 2001);
W. J. Ewens and G. R. Grant, Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics: An Introduction (Springer, New York, 2001);
R. Durbin, S. Eddy, A. Krogh, and G. Mitchison, Biological Sequence Analysis: Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids (Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, 1998);
see the educational materials at National Center for Biotechnology Information web site at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/;
our HHMI-sponsored bioinformatics course web site, at http://www.haverford.edu/biology/genomicscourse/genomics.htm contains a sample syllabus with detailed topic lists, useful links, comments on relevant software, some detailed lecture presentations, and sample textbooks.
19.
Soft and Fragile Matter: Non-equilibrium Dynamics, Metastability and Flow, edited by M. E. Cates and M. R. Evans (IOP, Bristol, 2000);
P. J. Collings and M. Hird, Introduction to Liquid Crystals: Chemistry and Physics (Taylor and Francis, London, 1997);
Soft Matter Physics, edited by M. Daoud and C. E. Williams (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1999);
D. F. Evans and H. Wennerstrom, The Colloidal Domain: Where Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Technology Meet (VCH, New York, 1999).
20.
S. J.
Riederer
, “Resource Letter MI-1: Medical imaging
,” Am. J. Phys.
60
(8
), 682
–693
(1992
);Some recent texts include J. J. Bevelacqua, Basic Health Physics: Problems and Solutions (Wiley, New York, 1999);
B. H. Hasegawa, The Physics of Medical X-ray Imaging (Medical Physics Publishing, Madison, WI, 1991);
R. K. Hobbie, Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology (Springer, AIP Press, New York, 1997);
F. W. Kremkau, Diagnostic Ultrasound: Principles, Instruments and Exercises (Saunders, Philadelphia, 1998);
H. B. Meire, Basic Ultrasound (Wiley, Chichester, 1995);
P. Sprawls, Jr., Physical Principles of Medical Imaging (Medical Physics Publishing, Madison, WI, 1995);
The Physics of Medical Imaging, edited by S. Webb (IOP, Bristol, 1992).
21.
Some examples include: B. Alberts, A. Johnson, J. Lewis, M. Raff, K. Roberts, and P. Walter, Molecular Biology of the Cell (Garland Science, New York, 2002);
H. Lodish, A. Berk, S. L. Zipursky, P. Matsudaira, D. Baltimore, and James Darnell, Molecular Cell Biology (Scientific American Books, New York, 2000);
J. M. Berg, J. L. Tymoczko, and L. Stryer, Biochemistry (Freeman, New York, 2002);
L. Hartwell, L. Hood, M. L. Goldberg, A. E. Reynolds, L. M. Silver, and R. C. Veres, Genetics: From Genes to Genomes (McGraw–Hill, Boston, 2000).
22.
Of these, three were biology majors concentrating in biophysics, and one crafted a related but independent program in bioengineering.
23.
See http://www.haverford.edu/msp/welcome.html.
24.
S. M.
Gruner
, J. S.
Langer
, P.
Nelson
, and V.
Vogel
, “What future will we choose for physics?
,” Phys. Today
48
, 25
–30
(1995
).25.
See http://www.aps.org/DBP.
26.
For the Biophysical Society, see http://www.biophysics.org. For FASEB, see http://www.faseb.org/.
27.
The Biophysical Society’s Online Biophysics Textbook is located at http://www.biophysics.org/btol/, while the Protein Society’s Teaching Tools are at http://www.faseb.org/protein/.
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© 2002 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2002
American Association of Physics Teachers
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