Statistical Physics for Biological Matter

This book aims to cover a broad range of topics in statistical physics, including statistical mechanics (equilibrium and non-equilibrium), soft matter and fluid physics, for applications to biological phenomena at both cellular and macromolecular levels. It is intended to be a graduate level textbook, but can also be addressed to the interested senior level undergraduate. The book is written also for those involved in research on biological systems or soft matter based on physics, particularly on statistical physics.

Typical statistical physics courses cover ideal gases (classical and quantum) and interacting units of simple structures. In contrast, even simple biological fluids are solutions of macromolecules, the structures of which are very complex. The goal of this book to fill this wide gap by providing appropriate content as well as by explaining the theoretical method that typifies good modeling, namely, the method of coarse-grained descriptions that extract the most salient features emerging at mesoscopic scales. The major topics covered in this book include thermodynamics, equilibrium statistical mechanics, soft matter physics of polymers and membranes, non-equilibrium statistical physics covering stochastic processes, transport phenomena and hydrodynamics.

Wokyung Sung is Professor Emeritus at Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH), where he taught and researched in the fields of statistical physics and biological physics for about 30 years. He obtained his Bachelor of Science at Seoul National University and PhD at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has been working mostly on a variety of biological matter and processes at the mesoscopic level, using statistical physics of soft matter and stochastic phenomena. In particular, he pioneered the theory of polymer translocation through membranes, engendering a whole new field in biological or polymer physics. He is a member of the Journal of Biological Physics editorial board and an Editor-in-Chief in the period 2007-2009. For his seminal contributions to science and in particular to statistical/biological physics, Prof. Sung was awarded a Medal of Science and Technology bestowed by the Korean Government in 2010. He also served as a director of Center for Theoretical Physics at POSTECH, and the Distinguished Research Fellow at Center for Self-Assembly and Complexity, Institute of Basic Science, in Pohang. Professor Sung was a visiting a scientist and professor at Oxford University, the Jülich Research Center, University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University.