BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS
The importance of biological systems together with their complexity, has made biological physics one of the fastest growing areas of research. Biological physics is not a single subfield of physics, but instead comprises a very broad range of research areas at the interface of physics, biology, and chemistry: it includes the physics of biological systems at the molecular and cellular levels, biomedical imaging and detection, neurobiological physics, studies of nanoscale machines and devices, and proteomics and genomics. Research in these areas has advanced tremendously through the work of physicists who apply techniques from soft condensed matter, computational science, imaging and optics, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, microfabrication, and nonlinear dynamics, as well as other fields.
Biological physics is thus highly interdisciplinary, and researchers in the University of Florida Physics Department benefit from close interactions with the UF College of Medicine, the Evelyn and William McKnight Brain Institute, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, and other departments and centers located either on or near campus.
Biological physics research at UF spans the range from basic studies at the molecular and cellular scale to whole-organism studies and biomedical imaging. Active research presently includes: Molecular Biophysics, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy, Biomagnetism and low gravity and optically-based biomedical imaging.