Introduction to physical principles that govern the ultimate limits for measuring force, charge, and optical signals in biological systems.

Lecture material will be motivated by recent experiments in three areas of biology: detecting single molecule forces, engineering biomolecular microarrays, and imaging cells with fluorescent probes.

Topics include wave theory, diffraction and imaging, equipartition theorem, dissipative systems, and noise analysis. Lab modules cover DNA manipulation, force spectroscopy and single molecule measurements.

Parallel introductory tracks will be offered to accommodate students with both engineering and biology backgrounds.

Same subject as BE.481J, MAS.866J