Polymer Biophysics: Basic Rules and Modeling

This lecture introduces the fundamental concepts of polymer biophysics, focusing on the central role of polymers like DNA, RNA, and proteins in living organisms. The instructor explains the process of transcription and translation, highlighting the importance of polymer conformations. The lecture delves into the modeling of DNA conformation using techniques like the Atomic Force Microscope. It discusses the probability distribution of polymer conformations and the Boltzmann principle. The persistence length of polymers is explored, emphasizing the exponential decay of correlations between segments. The lecture concludes with an application to DNA, discussing the structure of the double helix and the behavior of base pairs.