Period

From 16 to 27 January 2023, with students present in Povo (Trento), PLUS a compulsory 3-hour follow-up workshop online (time to be scheduled) on 23 March 2023 during the Biophysics Week 2023 (time to be confirmed).

The comprehension of living systems, from the smallest biomolecules to entire organisms or groups of organisms, relies more and more on an interplay between experiments and computational modeling. In silico representations of proteins, lipid membranes, chromosomes, cells, or tissues provides an indispensable tool to simulate the behavior of biological matter and study its properties at the finest length and time scale, at a level of accuracy which is currently (and maybe fundamentally) out of reach for experimental probes.

However, the variety of systems and processes, as well as the huge range of size and time scales spanning several orders of magnitude from angstroms and picoseconds to hours and centimeters), requires a comparably broad spectrum of different experimental techniques, visual representations, theoretical models, and computational approaches, each specifically tailored for a particular problem or size range. This intrinsically multi-scale problem thus demands researchers to have access to several methods, algorithms, and software programs.

The aim of this school is to provide the flavor of the typical problems one faces in the physical investigation of biological systems, as well as an overview of the most common and effective instruments employed to this end.
Students will be exposed to lectures focusing on specific aspects of biophysics, held by researchers actively working on them in top international institutions; subsequently, they will receive training in the usage of the software programs implementing algorithms and methods for the investigation of biological matter, from single atoms to proteins, small DNA strands, entire chromosomes, cellular membranes.

Scientists working at the frontier of these focus topics will lecture on the broad picture of the field as well as on the fundamental aspects of the specific methodologies employed in their research.
Lecturers include: Patricia Faisca (University of Lisbon, PT, to be confirmed), Sarah Harris (University of Leeds, UK, to be confirmed), Ralf Everaers (ENS Lyon, France), Daniele Dell'Orco (Università  di Verona), Angelo Rosa (SISSA, IT).

Participant background

Admission is reserved for up to 25 senior undergraduate and graduate international students (upper-level Bachelor's and all Master's students) with the following background:
Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, or interdisciplinary courses including at least one of the former among the primary disciplines.
A good level of English is needed (minimum level B2).

Participation costs