Biophysics as theoretical biology

It is high time to radically revise the concept of biophysics, and this theoretical biophysics school offers good opportunities to do just that.

According to the classification of sciences offered by the European Community (Official Journal of the European Communities, L 189, V.34,1991), BIOPHYSICS (B002) is all modern BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES (B000): molecular biophysics (B120), physiological biophysics (B130), genetics (B220), microbiology (B230), plant genetics (B225) & biochemistry (B191), histology (B210), protozoology (B235), parasitology (B240), entomology (B250), hydrobiology (B260), even clinical physics (B140) & chemistry (B190) - medical research and explanations that use modern physico-chemical methods. GENERAL BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES(B001) contain theoretical biology, history&philosophy of biomedical sciences (B100), biomathematics, biometrics, bioinformatics (B110), and, most interestingly, BIOMECHANICS & CYBERNETICS (B115). BIOCHEMISTRY (P004) is put not in the BIOMEDICAL (B000) but in the PHYSICAL(P000) sciences section.

This classification has already been adopted by Lithuanian Science Official Institutions (VALSTYBS ŽINIOS, Nr.6, 1998.01.16.) Here, BIOMECHANICS & CYBERNETICS (B115) are classified as BIOPHYSICS (B002).

It is very important that CYBERNETICS - the science about control, control systems, i.e., information processes in living organisms, some machines and society, the science about ORGANIZED SYSTEMS - is put among biological sciences, as a general biological science. There lies an important prediction of the future, because, in terms of the evolution of matter, life is the first and the most developed ORGANIZED system, whose evolution is caused by information-control processes. These processes are those non-material factors in living organisms - entelechies, archeaus, vis vitalis, organic (organizing) forces which, according to many outstanding thinkers- from Aristotle to H. Drisch - determine the essence of life. Transformation of matter and energy in biological systems can be viewed as a means to realize information-control programs. Life can be considered to be an adaptive system that stores information. The more such a biological system (species) is effective in storing and using of information, the more adapted it is. The storage of information is performed by two structural matter/energy transformation mechanisms: genetic according to Darwin and neural according to Lamarck.

While modernizing biology, we face an important problem - how CYBERNETICS should be introduced into BIOLOGY. In other words, how phenomena in living nature can be explained based on information - control programs by means of matter/energy transformation mechanisms. Such a modernized or general BIOPHYSICS course may consist of the following topics:

1. Basics of biological systems thermodynamics (concept of life in terms of thermodynamics).
2. Elements of biological systems kinetics (chemical-biochemical kinetics and principles of self-organization of dissipative structures).
3. Life as an organized system (basics of biocybernetics).
4. The cell as an organized system.
5. The organism as an organized system (biophysics of organisms).
6. Population interaction models.
7. Life as an adaptive, information storing system.

The proposed biophysics course would also be a theoretical biology course. It has been five years since a biophysics course with this syllabus was introduced in the University of Vilnius, and currently it is a mandatory course for biologists and physicists-biophysicists.