From Molecules to Living Organisms: An Interplay Between Biology and Physics

The book gathers lecture notes of courses given at the 2014 summer school on integrated biology in Les Houches, France, Session CII. It addresses an emerging field ranging from molecules to cells and to organisms. Through examples it presents a new way of thinking using a combination of interdisciplinary and cutting-edge methods, bridging physics and biology beyond current biophysics. Important novel developments are expected in the coming years that may well introduce paradigm shifts in biological science. The school had the ambition to prepare participants to become major actors in these breakthroughs.

The power of integrated approaches is illustrated through two cases: interactions between viruses and host cells, and flower development. The role of forces in biology, as well as their mathematical modeling, is illustrated in both processes: how they allow flower organs to emerge or how they control membrane fusion during virus budding. The book also underlines the importance of conformational changes and dynamics of proteins particularly during membrane processes. It explains how membrane proteins can be handled and studied by molecular simulations. Finally, the book also contains concepts in cell biology, in thermodynamics and several novel approaches such as in-cell NMR. Altogether, the chapters show how examining a biological system from different viewpoints based on multidisciplinary aspects often leads to enriching controversial arguments.

About the Author:
Eva Pebay-Peyroula, Institut de Biologie Structurale, CEA-CNRS Universite, France, Hugues Nury, Institut de Biologie Structurale, CEA-CNRS Universite, France, Francois Parcy, Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire et Vegetale, CNRS-CEA-INRA-Universite, France, Rob W. H. Ruigrok, Unit for Viral Host Cell Interactions, UJF-EMBL-CNRS, France, Christine Ziegler, Institute of Biophysics and Physical Biochemistry, University of Regensburg, Germany, Leticia F. Cugliandolo, Professor, Laboratoire de Physique Theorique et Hautes Energies, Sorbonnes Universites - Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

Eva Pebay-Peyroula is Professor at the Grenoble University, France. She received her PhD in Physics in 1986. In the following years, she changed her research interest towards structural biology. During the last 20 years she focuses on membrane proteins, first bacterial rhodopsins and then mitochondrial carriers, and is also interested in the development of novel crystallization methods based on lipidic phases.

Hugues Nury is a CNRS researcher interested in structural biology of membrane proteins, and especially of ion channels. He uses biochemistry, biophysics and crystallography to understand the operation mechanism of neurotransmitter-gated ion channels.

Francois Parcy is a CNRS research director. He started as a molecular geneticist of Arabidopsis seed and flower development. In more recent years, he has focused on transcriptional regulations during the development of flowers. He follows an integrative structural biology approach to understand how molecular properties of transcription and chromatin regulators at the atomic scale determine their actions at the genome level.

Rob W. H. Ruigrok worked as a group leader with the EMBL in Grenoble for 14 years and became a Professor at the University of Grenoble in 2003. He worked mainly on RNA viruses as influenza, rabies and measles viruses. He uses biochemistry, electron microscopy and crystallography to show how these viruses make new RNA, both mRNA and new viral RNAs, using nucleoproteins and polymerase binding RNA.

Christine Ziegler is Professor at the University of Regensburg, Germany. She got a PhD in Radiation Biophysics in 1996. After training as Medical Physicist she moved into the field of structural biology of membrane proteins and worked intensively on the molecular mechanism of secondary transporters. Her main expertise is in 2D and 3D crystallization of membrane transporters and channels as well as in Single Particle Analysis and cryo-electron microscopy.

Leticia F. Cugliandolo received her Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, in 1991. After post-docs in Universita di Roma I, La Sapienza, and CEA/Saclay she joined the Physics Department at Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris in 1997. She is currently a full professor at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and the director of Ecole de Physique des Houches since 2007. Her research focuses on statistical physics and condensed matter problems. She received the Marie Curie Excellence Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Prix Langevin of the French Physical Society.