Mechanics of the Cell

Biological physics, the application of physics to provide an understanding of biological phenomenas, is a burgeoning, new inter-disciplinary subject. This text explores the physics behind the architecture of a cell's envelope and internal scaffolding, as well as the properties of its soft components. The analysis is performed within a consistent mathematical framework, although readers can navigate from the introductory material to biological applications without working through the intervening mathematics. The book includes applications and extensions handled through problems at the end of each chapter. This text is aimed at senior undergraduates and graduate students in science and biomedical engineering.

David Boal is Professor of Physics at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, and has held visiting and adjunct faculty positions at Michigan State University and the University of Illinois. Having previously worked on phase transitions in nuclear matter, his current research interests include biophysics (specifically the mechanical properties and evolution of the cell) and the statistical mechanics of networks and membranes. He is the author of approximately 100 articles in refereed journals, the co-editor of two books: Particles and Fields (1978) and Short Distance Phenomena in Nuclear Physics (1983), and has given numerous invited lectures. Professor Boal teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, ranging from stellar nucleosynthesis to biophysics, for which he has received a faculty teaching award.