50th Heidelberg Physics Graduate Days

Physics of biological networks

Benedikt Sabass

Networks for transport, regulation, and information processing are ubiquitous in biology.  For example, cellular life is maintained by complex metabolic networks formed by the interactions of substrates and enzymes, our ability to think is based on neuronal circuits in our brain, and society is a huge network consisting of interacting individuals. A characteristic of networks is the emergence of complex functions through the interaction of simple units in non-equilibrium. During the past decades, research on the physics of networks has generated fundamental insights and methods that are broadly applicable. Focusing on biological systems, this lecture will provide an introduction to network physics. After first learning fundamental network models and graph theoretical concepts, we will study stochastic transport, design principles of biochemical regulation networks, and information transmission. The lecture also aims at familiarizing students with theoretical methodology, including stochastic processes and Bayesian inference.