Statistical Physics in Biology
MIT OpenCourseWare's graduate-level survey sits at the boundary of statistical physics and molecular biology. Lecture materials cover bioinformatic methods for extracting information from DNA sequences, gene finding, sequence comparison, and phylogenetic tree construction, alongside the physical forces that shape biopolymers: the DNA double helix, RNA secondary structure, and protein folding. Later sessions treat force, motion, and packaging in cells, including protein motors and membranes, before moving to collective behavior in cellular networks, neural networks, and evolutionary dynamics. The course includes MIT's standard OCW materials, lecture notes and readings drawn from physics and biology literature, offered under a Creative Commons license with no cost to access. It suits students with a physics background who want to see how tools like statistical mechanics and information theory apply to genomes, molecules, and living systems.