Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate Research

Biophysics

Biophysics is an emerging subfield in physical sciences. While many different areas fall into that category, the Biophysics Lab in the Physics Department at Loyola University is devoted to cellular biophysics, and specifically to physical mechanisms of membrane transport, such as ion channels. Ion channels are proteins in cellular membranes that control the exchange of ions between a cell and its surroundings. It is known that ions such as potassium, sodium, or calcium play a fundamental role in important physiological processes, e.g. neuron signaling or muscle contraction.

Biophysics research combines experiments, computations, and theoretical analysis. Student researchers in the Biophysics lab can choose between doing experiments (preparing biological samples, performing patch-clamping experiments) and computational work (analysis of raw experimental data generated from patch-clamping experiments, simulation of ionic currents, and building models of channel gating kinetics).