MPhys Physics with Theoretical Physics / Course details

The course will introduce modern topics in physical biology and medicine to physical scientists. It will consider key concepts in cellular and molecular biology, systems biology, systems medicine, the electrophysiology of neurons and brains, the applications of biophotonics and magnetic resonance imaging. 

Introduce cellular and molecular biology to physical scientists.

This unit describes phenomena in systems biology and systems medicine, focusing in particular on the understanding of the electrophysiology of neurons and brains, as well as the applications of photonics in photosynthesis, vision and medicine.

Understand phenomena in hearts and brains from the perspective of magnetic resonance imaging. 

On the successful completion of the course, students will be able to:  

• Quantify the electrophysiology of neurons and brains.
• Analyse phenomena in systems biology and systems medicine.
• Evaluate the applications of photonics to photosynthesis, vision and medicine.
• Appraise magnetic resonance imaging techniques with hearts and brains.  

1. Cells and organisms (3 lectures)

Model systems: haemoglobin, bacteriophage, E. coli, yeast, flies, mice, humans (1 lecture).

Genetics: sequencing, sequence alignment, binding sites (1 lecture).

Pattern formation, morphogenesis and reaction-diffusion equations (1 lecture).

2. Systems Biology (3 lectures)

Enzyme kinetics, transcription networks, network motifs, feedforward loops, gene oscillators, kinetic proof reading, robust signalling, bacterial chemotaxis, fold-change detection (3 lectures).

3. Systems Medicine (3 lectures)

Insulin/glucose circuit and Type I/II diabetes (1 lecture).

Two gland oscillators (1 lecture).

Aging and the periodic table of disease (1 lecture).

4. Neurons and electrophysiology (6 lectures)  

Spikes: integrate and fire model, spike variability, Hodgkin-Huxley model, Type I and II neurons, time dependent neuronal firing patterns (3 lectures).

Biological neural networks (1 lecture).

Synapses (1 lecture).

Senses (1 lecture).

5. Light and life (3 lectures)

Photosynthesis (1 lecture).

Vision (1 lecture).

Tissue optics: photochemical, photothermal and photomechanical processes (1 lecture).

6. Diagnostic photonics and other techniques (3 lectures)

Microscopy, super-resolution imaging, Raman, infrared spectroscopy, OCT, laser Doppler, photoacoustic imaging, optical tweezers, mass spectrometry, tissue/cell identification.

7. Physiology of hearts and brains (2 lectures)

Hearts (1 lecture)

Brains (1 lecture)

8. Advanced magnetic resonance imaging (4 lectures)

Cardiac MRI, cine imaging, perfusion (2 lectures)

Neuro MRI, fMRI, ASL, diffusion (2 lectures)  

9. MRI practical (4 lectures equivalent)

Compressed sensing reconstruction of diffusion imaging and derivation of physical diffusion parameters.

10. Revision (2 lectures) 

33 Lectures

Practicals in medicine equivalent to 4 lectures of material. Up to 50 students in a computer cluster doing imaging analysis. Thus there is a cap of 50 students in the first instance.