Overview

The Biophysics Graduate Group is an independent PhD program at UC Berkeley. The program trains graduate students for careers at the interface of the biological and physical sciences.

Approximately 60 faculty members, spanning over a dozen departments and groups at UC Berkeley, are affiliated with the Biophysics Group. Students can also work with faculty who are outside of the group.

Many of the tools and methods that drive progress in the biosciences are drawn from the physical and computational sciences. Current trends require that the next generation of scientists acquire expertise in both the biological and physical sciences, with research experience that overlaps traditional academic boundaries. The Biophysics Graduate Group strives to offer that experience to its PhD students.

Research within the group is conducted in the broad areas of structural biophysics and protein dynamics; systems neuroscience; molecular microscopy and optical probes; cell signaling and cellular physiology; computational biology and genomics; brain imaging and bioelectronics; and comparative biomechanics.

The Biophysics Graduate Group is a member of the QB3-Berkeley Program in Quantitative Biosciences and is also part of the Division of Biological Sciences.

Graduate Program

Biophysics: PhD

Visit Group Website

Courses

Biophysics

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Hillel Adesnik, Assistant Professor.
Research Profile

Adam Arkin, Professor. Systems modeling.
Research Profile

Eric Betzig, Professor. Physics, molecular and cell biology.
Research Profile

Steven Brenner, Professor. Computational Biology, Genomics, Protein Function Prediction.
Research Profile

Steve Brohawn, Assistant Professor. Molecular and cell biology.
Research Profile

Carlos J. Bustamante, Professor. Nanoscience, structural characterization of nucleo-protein assemblies, single molecule fluorescence microscopy, DNA-binding molecular motors, the scanning force microscope, prokaryotes.
Research Profile

Jamie Cate, Professor. Molecular basis for protein synthesis by the ribosome, RNA, antibiotics, a thermophilic bacterium, escherichia coli.
Research Profile

Kathy Collins, Professor. Telomerase, non-coding RNAs, RNA silencing.
Research Profile

Xavier Darzacq, Assistant Professor.
Research Profile

Karen Davies, Assistant Adjunct Professor. Protein structure, bioenergentic membranes, cellualr organisation, electron cryo tomography.
Research Profile

Abby Dernburg, Professor. Genomics, chromosome remodeling and reorganization during meiosis, Down syndrome, DNA.
Research Profile

Michael Deweese, Associate Professor. Machine learning, computation, systems neuroscience, auditory cortex, neural coding.
Research Profile

Jennifer A. Doudna, Professor. RNA machines, hepatitis C virus, RNA interference, ribosomes.
Research Profile

David G. Drubin, Professor. Cellular morphogenesis, plasma membrane dynamics, microtubule cytoskeletons, cytoskeletal proteins, morphological development.
Research Profile

Michael B. Eisen, Professor. Genomics, genome sequencing, bioinformatics, animal development.
Research Profile

+ Dan Feldman, Professor. Neurobiology, learning, neurophysiology, sensory biology.
Research Profile

Marla B. Feller, Professor. Neurophysiology, developmental neuroscience.
Research Profile

Graham R. Fleming, Professor. Chemistry, proteins, chemical and biological dynamics in the condensed phase, ultrafast spectroscopy, body dynamics, liquids, solutions, glasses, photosynthetic proteins, role of solvents in chemical reactions, complex electric fields, electron transfer.
Research Profile

Daniel Fletcher, Professor. Bioengineering, optical and force microscopy, microfabrication, biophysics, mechanical properties of cells.
Research Profile

+ Robert J. Full, Professor. Energetics, comparative biomechanics, arthropod, adhesion, comparative physiology, locomotion, neuromechanics, biomimicry, biological inspiration, reptile, gecko, amphibian, robots, artificial muscles.
Research Profile

Jack L. Gallant, Professor. Vision science, form vision, attention, fMRI, computational neuroscience, natural scene perception, brain encoding, brain decoding.
Research Profile

Hernan G. Garcia, Assistant Professor.
Research Profile

+ Phillip Lewis Geissler, Professor. Statistical mechanics, theoretical chemistry, microscopic behavior of complex biological and material systems, biomolecular structure and dynamics, nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy.
Research Profile

Jay T. Groves, Professor. Chemistry, physical chemistry of cell membranes, molecular organization in cell membranes, receptor-ligand binding, spatial rearrangement of receptors, ligands.
Research Profile

Oskar Hallatschek, Assistant Professor.
Research Profile

Teresa Head-Gordon, Professor. Computational chemistry, biophysics, bioengineering, biomolecules, materials, computational science.
Research Profile

James Hurley, Professor. Structural biology and biophysics of membrane remodeling in autophagy, membrane traffic, and HIV biogenesis.
Research Profile

Nicholas Ingolia, Assistant Professor. Ribosome Profiling, translation, genomics.
Research Profile

Ehud Y. Isacoff, Professor. Ion channel function, synaptic plasticity, neural excitability, synaptic transmission, the synapse.
Research Profile

Na Ji, Associate Professor. Physics, molecular and cell biology.

Sung-Hou Kim, Professor. Computational genomics, Structural Biology, drug discovery, disease genomics.
Research Profile

Mimi A. R. Koehl, Professor. Biomechanics, insects, invertebrate functional morphology, fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, marine animals, filtration, gliding vertebrates.
Research Profile

Richard H. Kramer, Professor. Cells, synaptic transmission, chemical signaling between neurons, ion channels, electrical signals, chemical reagents, synapses.
Research Profile

Sanjay Kumar, Professor. Biomaterials, molecular and cellular bioengineering, stem cells, cancer biology, translational medicine.
Research Profile

John Kuriyan, Professor. Structural and functional studies of signal transduction, DNA replication, cancer therapies, phosphorylation.
Research Profile

Markita Landry, Assistant Professor.
Research Profile

Luke Lee, Professor. Biophotonics, biophysics, bionanoscience, molecular imaging, single cell analysis, bio-nano interfaces, integrated microfluidic devices (iMD) for diagnostics and preventive personalized medicine.
Research Profile

Polina Lishko, Assistant Professor. Reproductive and Developmental Biology, ion channels, Physiology of Fertilization and Early Embryo Development.
Research Profile

Kranthi K. Mandadapu, Assistant Professor. Statistical Mechanics, Continuum Mechanics — Polycrystalline Materials, Biological Membranes, Bacterial Motility.
Research Profile

Michael A. Marletta, Professor. Chemical biology, molecular biology, structure/function relationships in proteins, catalytic and biological properties of enzymes, cellular signaling, nitric oxide synthase, soluble guanylate cyclase, gas sensing, cellulose degradation, polysaccharide monooxygenases.
Research Profile

Susan Marqusee, Professor. Amino acids, determinants of protein structure and folding, biophysical, structural and computational techniques, translocation, protein synthesis.
Research Profile

Andreas Martin, Associate Professor. Proteasome.
Research Profile

Richard Mathies, Professor of the Graduate School. Genomics, biophysical, bioanalytical, physical chemistry, laser spectroscopy, resonance Raman, excited-state reaction dynamics photoactive proteins, rhodopsins, microfabricated chemical biochemical analysis devices, forensics, infectious disease detection.
Research Profile

Barbara J. Meyer, Professor. Developmental biology, gene expression, genetic determination of sex, regulatory genes, chromosome dynamics, X-chromosome.
Research Profile

Evan W. Miller, Assistant Professor. Biophysical, bioanalytical and physical chemistry.
Research Profile

Mohammad Mofrad, Professor. Nuclear pore complex and nucleocytoplasmic transport, mechanobiology of disease, cellular mechanotransduction, integrin-mediated focal adhesions.
Research Profile

Priya Moorjani, Assistant Professor. Human population genetics and evolutionary biology.
Research Profile

Eva Nogales, Professor. Biochemistry, complex biological assemblies, structure and regulation of the cytoskeleton, microtubule dynamics, human transcriptional initiation machinery, biophysics.
Research Profile

Eunyong Park, Assistant Professor. Structure and mechanism of membrane transport proteins, cryo-EM, biochemistry, biophysics.
Research Profile

Daniel S. Rokhsar, Professor. Biology, collective phenomena and ordering in condensed matter and biological systems, theoretical modeling, computational modeling, behavior of quantum fluids, cold atomic gases, high temperature superconductors, Fermi and Bose systems.
Research Profile

David Savage, Assistant Professor. Synthetic biology and metabolism.
Research Profile

Aaron Streets, Assistant Professor. Genomics and evolution of aging and cellular and organismal diversity.
Research Profile

Peter Sudmant, Assistant Professor. Genomics, genetics, computational biology, structural variation, RNA, diversity, aging, population genetics.
Research Profile

Frederic Theunissen, Professor. Behavior, cognition, brain, psychology, birdsong, vocal learning, audition, neurophysiology, speech perception, computational neuroscience, theoretical neuroscience.
Research Profile

Evan Williams, Professor. Spectroscopy, molecular structure and dynamics, analytical chemistry, biophysical chemistry, structure and reactivity of biomolecules and biomolecule/water interactions, mass spectrometry, separations, protein conformation, protein and DNA sequencing.
Research Profile

Ke Xu, Assistant Professor. Biophysical chemistry, cell biology at the nanoscale, super-resolution microscopy, single-molecule spectroscopy.
Research Profile

Ahmet Yildiz, Associate Professor. Single molecule biophysics, molecular motors, telomeres.
Research Profile

Roberto Zoncu, Assistant Professor. Biophysics and Structural Biology, MCB.
Research Profile