Learning Biological Physics via Modeling and Simulation: A Course for Science and Engineering Undergraduates

I'll describe an intermediate-level course on Physical Models of Living Systems embodied in a new edition of a textbook. The course is a response to rapidly growing interest among undergraduates in a broad range of science and engineering majors. Students acquire several research skills that are often not addressed in traditional undergraduate courses. The combination of experimental data, modeling, and physical reasoning used in this course represents a new mode of "how to learn" for many of my students. These basic skills are presented in the context of case studies from cell biology, including:

•Virus dynamics in single patients, and in populations

•Bacterial genetics and evolution of drug resistance

•Statistical inference, with applications to superresolution microscopy and cryo-EM

•Mechanobiology, for example catch bonding in immune cell receptors

•Cellular control circuits.

Outcomes include student reports of improved ability to gain research positions as undergraduates, and greater effectiveness in such positions, as well as students enrolling in more challenging later courses than they would otherwise have chosen.