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Welcome
to the web-site of the Interdisciplinary Program in Biophysics at the University of Virginia . The mission of our program is to provide premier graduate training in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, which is a field at the crossroads of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. The aim of Molecular and Cellular Biophysics is to understand, quantitatively and at the molecular level, complex biological systems and processes.
These are exciting times for Biophysics. To understand biological functions, we need to understand the structures of macromolecules, macromolecular assemblies, and components of cells that carry out these functions. This is the goal of structural biology. Structural and dynamic information is obtained using x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, and EPR spectroscopy. Large macromolecular assemblies are characterized by electron or atomic force microscopy. Confocal or near-field light microscopy are ideally suited to study sub-cellular organization. The nucleotide sequence of every human gene is now known. Following this milestone in molecular biology and genetics, the focus must now turn to the structures of all these gene products and, particularly, to the complex interactions between them. The National Institutes of Health have funded multimillion dollar structural genomics initiatives to this end. This initiative will require thousands of biophysicists with expertise in structural biology. Researchers at the University of Virginia are part of this initiative and one goal of the Interdisciplinary Program in Biophysics is to provide first-class training of students in this exponentially growing field.
There are many other challenging areas of Biophysics that need the attention of a growing number of well-trained biophysicists. Membrane proteins constitute about a third of all proteins in higher organisms. However, fewer than 100 membrane protein structures have been solved to date. The imagination of creative biophysicists who come up with new ideas about how to study the structures and functions of membrane proteins and their organization in the lipid bilayer of biological membranes will be needed. Physicists have shown that single molecules can be detected and manipulated with various techniques. Techniques such as atomic force microscopy, single molecule fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy, and laser tweezers find increasing application in biology. These are all subjects that are actively pursued by faculty at the University of Virginia . Biophysicists who have a solid quantitative training in physics and chemistry and who understand important biological problems will be needed to move forward these areas of cutting edge research.
We want you to be part of these exciting discoveries. As you browse through these pages, I hope you will sense the commitment of our faculty and students to their research, their dedication to excellence, and their enthusiasm for teaching and learning. You will also find that the facilities for biophysical research at the University of Virginia are excellent and that Charlottesville with its Jefferson-designed University is a beautiful place to live. If you have further questions about what is doubtless one of the premier Biophysics Programs in the country, feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Robert K. Nakamoto, Ph.D.
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