Imperial College Press Physical biology: from atoms to medicine

This is an avant-garde book edited by Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail with contributions from eminent scientists including four Nobel prize winners. The perspectives of these world leaders in physics, chemistry, and biology define potential new frontiers at the interface of disciplines and including physical, systems, and synthetic biology. This book brings about the confluence of concepts and tools, and that of different disciplines, to address significant problems of our time: visualization; theory and computation for complexity; macromolecular function, protein folding and misfolding; and systems integration from cells to consciousness. The scope of tools is wide-ranging, spanning imaging, crystallography, microfluidics, single-molecule spectroscopy, and synthetic probe targeting. Concepts such as dynamic self-assembly, molecular recognition, non-canonical amino acids, and others are covered in various chapters as they are cornerstones in building the trilogy description of behavior-structure, dynamics, and function.The volume is uniquely structured to provide overviews with historical perspectives on the evolution of ideas and on the future of physical biology and biological complexity, from atoms to medicine. Review Even the shorter contributions, written by masters of their fields, are penetrating. --Chemistry World The scope of this collection of overviews of the present state and future possible developments in physical biology is very broad. The result is both informative and readable. Anyone interested in how physics, engineering and mathematics can contribute to research in biology and medicine, be it on the molecular level or on the healthcare level, should be able to find useful information and inspiration in this book. --Acta Paediatrica