Quantitative Biology Bootcamp

About

Biology is being revolutionized by new experimental techniques that have made it possible to quantitatively query the inner workings of molecules, cells and multicellular organisms in ways that were previously unimaginable. The objective of this course is to respond to this deluge of quantitative data through quantitative models and the use of biological numeracy. The bootcamp will explore the description of a broad array of topics from modern biology using the language of physics, mathematics and computation. One style of thinking we will emphasize imagines the kinds of simple calculations that one can do with a stick in the sand.

We will draw examples from broad swaths of modern biology from our department and beyond including cell biology (signaling and regulation, cell motility), physiology (metabolism, swimming), developmental biology (patterning of body plans, how size and number of organelles and tissues are controlled), neuroscience (action potentials and ion channel gating) and evolution (population genetics) in order to develop theoretical models that make precise predictions about biological phenomena. These predictions will be tested through the hands-on analysis of experimental data and by performing numerical simulations using Python.

Quantitative biology will be introduced as an exciting new tool to complement other approaches within biology such as genetics, genomics and structural biology. The course will introduce students to the enabling power of biological numeracy in scientific discovery and make it possible for them to use these tools in their own future research.

Note that no previous coding or advanced math skills are required. The course is designed with the objective of being widely accessible. Further, interested students will have the opportunity to participate in evening experimental rotations in several labs aimed at learning how experiments to obtain the type of quantitative data that our models will be talking to are implemented and executed.

The syllabus for the course can be found here.

When and where

Lecture: Friday 8/14/24 through Friday 8/23/24, 9:00am–4:30pm, IGI Conference Room. Note that there will be no bootcamp on 8/19/24 and 8/20/24.

 

People

Instructors:

Hernan Garcia
Hernan Garcia
(MCB/ Physics)
Priya Moorjani
Priya Moorjani
(MCB/ Computational Biology)
 
 

Graduate Student Instructors:


Nick Gravina
(Physics)
 

Andrea Herman
(Physics)
 

Course structure

A typical day in the bootcamp looks like this:

  • 9:00am–12:00pm: Lectures, hands-on activities and copious amounts of coffee.

  • 12:00pm–12:30pm: Lunch (provided).

  • 12:30pm–1:30pm: Research talk from Berkeley faculty members on their research in quantitative biology. We aim for these talks to be of high pedagogical value, so interruptions and questions are encouraged!

  • 1:30pm–2:00pm: Breakout session between the students and the speaker. These sessions are perfect venues to ask follow up questions about the talk, but to also learn about the speaker’s career path.

  • 2:00pm–4:00pm: More lectures, hands-on activities and coffee.

  • 4:00pm–4:30pm: Study hall to work on final project.

  • 5:00pm: Optional experimental rotations (see more below).

 

Speakers

Number Date Speaker Title
1 8/14

Aaron Streets

New tools for collecting large biological datasets

2 8/15

Liana Lareau

Counting is hard: observing splicing changes in single cell data
3 8/16

Priya Moorjani

TBD
4 8/21

Carlos Bustamante

TBD
5 8/22

Ashley Wolf

TBD
6 8/23

Dan Fletcher

Quantifying the cell surface

Experimental Rotations

Sign up for experimental rotations here. Please sign up only for dates and times you can attend.

Number Lab (instructor) # days and dates available Project(s) description
1 Fletcher Lab 8-15 and 8-16 Building a microscope from scratch
2 Garcia Lab 8-22 Single-cell immune response dynamics in fly larvae
3 Garcia Lab 8-15, 8-16, 8-19, 8-20 Real-time imaging of the transcription cycle
4 Yildiz Lab 8-19, 8-20, 8-21 Stepping of individual molecular motors
5 Bustamante Lab 8-21, 8-22 Pulling DNA with optical tweezers
6 Hallatschek Lab 8-21 Bacterial evolution

Syllabus

The full syllabus for the course can be found here

Number Date Topics Slides Python Code Suggested Readings Notes and Videos Extra Problems 
1 8/14

Order of Magnitude Biology

  • A feeling for the numbers in biology.
  • Street-Fighting Mathematics: Order-of-magnitude estimates as a tool for discovery in the living world.
  • What sets the scale of X?

A Feeling for the Numbers in Biology: Your Turn

Biology by the Numbers

 

 

 

A Feeling for the Numbers in Biology: Your Turn

 
2 8/14

Stuff(t) or the Protocol of Biological Dynamics - Part I

  • Time evolution in biology.
  • Bacterial growth dynamics: Solving bacterial growth  numerically.
Stuff(t) (or the Protocol of Biological Dynamics)    
3 8/15 Theory in Biology: Insights from Population Genetics

Theory in Biology: Insights from Population Genetics

Hardy Weinberg Demo

Ramachandran 2005: Support for founder effect originating in Africa

Hernandez 2010: Classic sweeps in Human Evolution

Fan 2016: Selection in humans

Bergstrom 2020: Human Genome Diversity

Mead 2008: Kuru epidemic

Allison 2002: Discovery of Resistance to Malaria of Sickle-cell Heterozygotes

Segurel and Bon 2017: Lactase persistence

1000 genomes project - evidence for out of Africa theory

   
4 8/16 Uncertainty in Biology: Quantifying and making inferences amidst errors.

Uncertainty in Biology: Quantifying and Making Inferences amidst errors

Bootstrap Resampling

Blank Notebooks:

Efron 1977: Bootstrap methods

Mendel 1865: Experiments in Plant Hybridization

Luria and Delbruk 2015: Sampling distributions and the bootstrap

John Snow, Cholera, and the Broad Street Pump; Waterborne Diseases Then and Now

 

   
4 8/21

Diffusion as Biology’s Null Hypothesis for Dynamics 

  • Diffusion and axonal transport.
  • Diffusion by coin flips.

Diffusion as Biology's Null Hypothesis for Dynamics

 

Groundbreaking measurement of gene expression dynamics in single E. coli cells using the MS2 system (Golding 2005)

Induction kinetics of the lac operon as reported by protein activity (Marbach2012)

Introduction to Diffusion (VideoNotes)

Measuring diffusion by tracking single molecules (VideoNotes)

Diffusion by Coin Flips (VideoNotes)

 
5 8/22

Quantifying Prejudice – The Great Probability Distributions of Biology

Quantifying Prejudice – The Great Probability Distributions of Biology

Constitutive promoter

Gene Expression - Master Equation

mRNA Distribution of the Constitutive Promoter: Class Notes  
6 8/23

Phase Transitions in Biology

  • Entropy maximization.
  • Free Energy Minimization.
  • Drawing Phase Diagrams.

Phase Separation - An Equilibrium Perspective