Saurish Chakrabarty Physicist

Seminar on Physics in Biology

One Day Seminar organized by the Department of Physics, in collaboration with IQAC, Acharya Prafulla Chandra College

6th May 2025

Physics is the most basic natural science and is therefore at the lowest level on a tree diagram depicting the natural sciences and all its branches. It is often possible to cover a lot of distance on one of the natural science branches without knowledge of the basic physical principles such as Newton’s laws of motion, Newton’s laws of gravitation or quantum mechanics. General physics, for example, is rarely a prerequisite for introductory biology or chemistry. On the contrary, to sprout new branches in our understanding of nature, and in biology in particular, tools from basic physics and chemistry are often required.

Physics is proverbially known as the science of matter, while biology the science of life. Biophysics is an interesting discipline which applies the principles and methods of physics to living beings and organisms. The coming together of these two important branches of science must be appreciated and understood in this century of ‘life sciences’.

Biology is essentially an interdisciplinary field and is in the forefront of modern physics and information sciences. The goal of this seminar is to Expose students to the life and work of Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, an extraordinary physicist cum biologist, so that students can get informed and draw inspiration. Expose students to exciting problems in biology through research talks by physicists and biophysicists. Topics include the structure and function of biomolecules, the organization of cells, etc. Encompass the methods and theories of a range of mathematical topics and bioinformatics, so that students are able to find career options in higher education and research in the fields of computational biology, systems biology, biophysics and related areas.

(The above introduction was written by Dr. Goutam Biswas.)

Invited Lecture by Dr. Gautam Basu

“Quantitative versus Qualitative: Photosynthesis Research by Jagadish Chandra Bose” Dr. Gautam Basu, Former Professor, Department of Biophysics, Bose Institute

Jagadish Chandra Bose was a polymath who is considered to be the doyen of Indian science. His research career can be divided into three phases. His most well-known contribution is in the first phase where he focused on microwave research. His demonstration of millimeter wave propagation in 1895 set the stage for modern multimedia communication. During the second phase of his research, he worked on establishing the common nature of electric response to all forms of stimulation, in animal and plant tissues as well as in some inorganic models. In the last phase of his work, executed at Presidency College and at the Bose Institute, he pioneered in understanding electrical and mechanical responses to stimulation, the transmission of excitation in plants. His work opened up a completely new field of electrophysiology, plant memory, intelligence and response. In addition to discussing the broad scientific journey of Bose, the main focus of this talk will be Bose’s exemplary work on Photosynthesis during the latter part of the third phase of research. I will attempt to show why Bose was a pioneer in Photosynthetic research.

Invited Lecture by Dr. Jayashree Saha

“Physics and Cell Biology: Vision of the Future” Dr. Jayashree Saha, Professor, Department of Physics, University of Calcutta

The study of human physiology requires investigation of multilevel biological systems. We need to consider the processes occurring at different length and time scales. Motivation of this project is to study human system biology applying laws of Physics. Computational biomedicine at cell level is concerned with the development of integrated physical models. We will discuss molecular-scale coarse grained modeling and computational study for exploring cell behavior.

Programme Schedule

11:30 AM Opening Session
11:45 AM Remarks by Dr. Arunabha Adhikari, WBSU (Guest of Honour)
12:00 PM Lecture by Dr. Gautam Basu, Invited Speaker
1:15 PM Contributed Talks
1:30 PM Break for lunch
2:15 PM Lecture by Dr. Jayashree Saha, Invited Speaker
3:30 PM Contributed Talks and Discussion
4:00 PM Closing Session

Photos and Videos

The video recording was done by Mr. Priyankar Mondal. We thank Mr. Jyoti Prakash Mandal and Mrs. Arpita Bal from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, APC College, for help in arranging the recording. Priankar also captured an excellent group photo after the event.

Please click on the links below for a photo album and a video playlist for the complete event.

Links for individual videos

Written on June 14th, 2025 by Saurish Chakrabarty