Integrated Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science

The Frontiers In Science (FIS) program is intended to introduce students from all disciplines and academic levels to the beauty and fun of scholarly pursuits in the natural and physical science disciplines, and to engage faculty in interdisciplinary and multi-institutional research activities. The foundation of the FIS program are monthly seminar presentations on leading-edge interdisciplinary research in biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and physics, and open discussions on opportunities in science as a career, research training internships for students, and faculty research collaborations.

2007 Seminars

• November 8, 2007
  • Which way to go ?: Modeling Cell Movement Wouter-Jan Rappel, PhD., Senior Scientist, CTBP & the Department of Physics, UCSD
  • Directed cell movement, or chemotaxis, plays an important role in many key biological processes, including wound healing, fetal development and cancer metastasis. In this talk, I will give an overview of our efforts to use tools from physics to help us understand how cells direct their motion.
  
  
• October 18, 2007
  • Nervous Systems as Seen by Physicists, Henry Abarbanel, PhD., Prof., Department of Physics & Institute for Nonlinear Science, UCSD
  • Biological nervous systems are nonlinear collections of neruons with links made of dynamical synapses that collectively perform important functions for animals. Physicists can contribute to their study in an essential quantitative manner.
    After describing how nervous systems work and how physicists can productively contibute to their study, I will describe one really interesting system: the development and maintenance of birdsong.
• September 20, 2007
  • Dynamics and Energetics of the Large-Scale Conformational Transitions of Proteins suggest a New View of Allostery, Karunesh Arora, PhD., Post-Doctoral Scholar, Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
  
  
• September 13, 2007
• Perspectives on a Graduate School Education
  An open forum on opportunities, experiences and perspectives on graduate school in the mathematical, physical, and life sciences. Hosted by faculty and graduate students ar CSUSM and UCSD/CTBP


• August 30, 2007
  • Computer Simulations of Proteins and Nucleic Acids using Implicit Solvent Models, David Case, PhD., Prof., Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
  
  
• April 25, 2007
• Using the Physics of Electric Charges to Understand Diseases, Kristin Purdy, PhD., Adj. Prof., Department of Physics, CSUSM
• Biological cells are full of long flexible charged polymer filaments. Because of their charge, these biopolymers, like DNA and filamentous actin protein, interact with each other in specific ways. Studying the structures of these charged biopolymers in the presence of attraction inducing agents has lead to a better understanding of multiple genetic diseases. In this talk I will discuss how we can use the physics of electrostatic attractions and repulsions to better understand two genetic diseases: 1) a form of genetic deafness, in which the attractive interactions within the stereocilia of ear hair cells, which mechanically respond to sound, are weakened, and 2) Cystic Fibrosis, a disease in which charged biopolymers aggregate airways (lungs) of patients.


• April 18, 2007
  • Connecting Physical Models to Biological Phenomena, Charles L. Brooks, III, PhD., Prof., Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
  
  
• March 21, 2007
  • A Critique of Pure Vision - Terrence J. Sejnowski, PhD., Prof., Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Sciences
  
  
• February 21, 2007
  • Engineering in Biology: designer circuits, re-wired pathways and dN/dt", Matt Scott, PhD., Post-Doctoral Fellow (Prof Terry Hwa's Research Group - Statistical Biophysics), UCSD
  
  
• January 31, 2007
  • Astrocytes: Eavesdropping on Neuronal Conversations, Suhita Nadkarni, PhD., Post-Dostoral Fellow (Prof Herbie Levine's Research Group - Biological Dynamics of Cellular Systems), UCSD