Increasing numbers of physicists, chemists, and mathematicians are moving into biology, reading literature across disciplines, and mastering novel biochemical concepts. To succeed in this transition, researchers must understand on a practical level what is experimentally feasible. The number of experimental techniques in biology is vast and often specific to particular subject areas; nonetheless, there are a few basic methods that provide a conceptual underpinning for broad application. Introduction to Experimental Biophysics is the ideal benchtop companion for physical scientists interested in getting their hands wet.
Assuming familiarity with basic physics and the scientific method but no previous background in biology or chemistry, this book provides:
A thorough description of modern experimental and analytical techniques used in biological and biophysical research
Practical information and step-by-step guidance on instrumentation and experimental design
Recipes for common solutions and media, lists of important reagents, and a glossary of biological terms used
Developed for graduate students in biomedical engineering, physics, chemical engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science, Introduction to Experimental Biophysics is an essential resource for scientists to overcoming conceptual and technical barriers to working in a biology wet lab.
Jay L. Nadeau is an associate professor of biomedical engineering and physics at McGill University (2004–present). Her research interests include nanoparticles, fluorescence imaging, and development of instrumentation for the detection of life elsewhere in the solar system.
She has published over 50 papers on topics ranging from theoretical condensed matter physics to experimental neurobiology to the development of anticancer drugs and, in the process, has used almost every technique described in this book. Her work has been featured in New Scientist, Highlights in Chemical Biology, Radio Canada’s Les Années Lumière, Le Guide des Tendances, and in educational displays in schools and museums. Her research group features
chemists, microbiologists, roboticists, physicists, and physician-scientists, all learning from each other and hoping to speak each other’s language. A believer in bringing biology to physicists as well as physics to biologists, she has created two graduate-level courses: methods in molecular biology for physical scientists and mathematical cellular physiology. She also teaches pharmacology in the medical school and was one of the pioneers in the establishment of multiple mini-interviews for medical school admission.
She has an adjunct position with The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and collaborators in industry and academia in the United States, Europe, Australia, and
Japan. She has given several dozen invited talks at meetings of the American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), the Committee on Space Research, and many others. Before McGill, she was a member of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Life Detection, and previous to that a Burroughs-Wellcome postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of Henry A. Lester at Caltech. She received her PhD in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1996.
