Biological Systems
Biology as information processing
Chemistry → cells → genetics → evolution → systems biology → neuroscience → information → synthetic biology → health → frontier bio-computation.
Chemistry of Life
Atoms, Bonds, and Thermodynamics
Atoms, bonds and water, the biomolecular classes, the thermodynamics of life, enzymatic catalysis, and reaction networks.
Cellular Systems
Structure, Transport, and Signaling
The cell as a computational unit, membrane and transport, compartmentalization, signal transduction, and the cell cycle.
Genetic Information
Storage, Code, and Expression
DNA as digital storage, the genetic code, replication and fidelity, transcription and translation, and gene regulation networks.
Evolution
Selection, Drift, and Dynamics
Populations as distributions, natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and recombination, and evolutionary dynamics.
Systems Biology
Networks, Oscillation, and Robustness
Biological networks, metabolic networks, gene regulatory networks, feedback and oscillation, and robustness and adaptation.
Minimal Neuroscience
Neurons, Potentials, and Plasticity
Neurons as computational elements, membrane potential, action potentials, synaptic plasticity, and neural coding.
Information & Entropy in Life
Entropy, Mutual Information, and Error Correction
Shannon entropy in biology, mutual information in signaling, the thermodynamic cost of information, error correction in biology, and maximum-entropy principles.
Synthetic Biology
Parts, Circuits, and Programmable Editing
Parts abstraction, genetic circuits, logic and computation in cells, CRISPR and programmable editing, and the design-verify-iterate loop.
Health as System Stability
Homeostasis, Allostasis, and Failure Modes
Homeostasis, allostasis, disease as dynamical failure, the immune system as a classifier, and aging as information loss.
Frontier Bio-Computational Systems
Neural Networks, DNA Computing, and Morphogenesis
Biological neural networks and AI, DNA computing, cellular automata and morphogenesis, bio-inspired optimization, and the open problems.
Guided instruction and research mentorship are offered separately → hbar.work