Bioengineering Principles of Physiology
B I O E N 5 8 8 - U n i v e r s i t y - o f - W a s h i n g t o n
B I O E N G I N E E R I N G - P R I N C I P L E S - O F - P H Y S I O L O G Y
This course is designed
to build a fundamental understanding of the biophysical and engineering principals
that are the basis of cellular and systems human physiology. This course is
intended to help in your transition into graduate school and in particular
to bioengineering which is in the act of defining itself. Bioengineering is
pre-eminently an integrating discipline, at the intersections of virtually
all disciplines in biology and engineering. The biological disciplines benefit
from the analyses, quantification and simulations of engineering disciplines.
Similarly engineering benefits from learning about the complexity, redundancy
and degeneracy in functioning cells, organs and systems.
The major content, elements and principles to be taught are:
1. Protein-protein interactions; aspects of recognition and as machines coupling a thermodynamic driving force with a mechanical, osmotic and electrical work.2. Function at scales differing by 9 orders of magnitude, from nanometers to meters.
3. Metabolic machines are computing and signaling machines; metabolic processes are chemical networks driving exergonic biological functions; these chemical reactions occur in what is essentially a liquid medium (important discussion of this matter in lectures 16 and 17).
4. Membrane separate functional domains, and channels are inter-domain communication machines.
5. Neural control of components and systems, and regulation of function.
This course uses muscle as the physiological material to develop these themes. Muscle is one of the best developed topics among biological systems, yet one that continues to provide challenging problems and requires significant technical and experimental development for current research. Students may learn more about the function of muscle than they might think they need for their area of research but the principles and learning process are the key of the course, not the information about muscle per se. We will show that with this topic we can span an enormous range of biological and engineering concepts, and assist you to develop a discerning attitude to scientific advancement of knowledge. Students will also develop the intellectual tools to enable them to learn new material by their own reading and analysis, and especially by developing clever hypotheses, working out their quantitative aspects and relationships as predictions, working out definitive experimental tests and designing the tools sufficient to conduct those tests.
Evaluation
| Grading | |
| Writing Assignment #1 (Mini Qual) | 15% |
| Writing Assignment #2 (Mini Qual) | 30% |
| Paper Presentation & Written Review | 25% |
| Take-Home Midterm | 10% |
| Take-Home Final | 15% |
| Class Participation | 5% |
Late
Assignments
To receive credit for an assignment, it needs to be turned in on time. Late assignments will be accepted only with "legitimate" excuses, and the deadline will be extended as arranged with the instructor.