Engineering Analysis of Living Cells

This course introduces a quantitative understanding of cell biology at the molecular level. Guided with real experimental data, biological processes and systems are modeled using fundamental physical principles and engineering analytic techniques, including free-energy minimization, statistical mechanics, random walk models, electrostatics, diffusive dynamics, electrochemical equilibrium, complex networks, feedback system analysis, Turing reaction-diffusion equations, and sequence analysis. Various complicated biological phenomena will be shown to be explicable with the same simple underlying principles.