Introduction
Following the course on intracellular transport, Jean-François Joanny’s course this year will focus on the physical aspects of energy consumption by cells and metabolism.
This course will be offered in conjunction with Thomas Lecuit’s course, which will cover the biological aspects.
Living systems are not in thermodynamic equilibrium and consume energy in the form of nutrients and oxygen. This incoming flow is offset by an outgoing flow of heat and “waste.”
Energy is used by metabolic chemical reaction pathways to build cellular components and power active cellular processes. The goal of the course is to discuss energy flows and the constraints they impose on living systems, from the cell to the organism, by presenting certain insights from non-equilibrium statistical physics. This course will be offered in parallel with Professor Thomas Lecuit’s course on the same topic, which takes a more biological approach.