Our major is perfect for students who wish to think broadly and quantitatively about how living systems can be understood at the molecular level using fundamental laws. We are devoted to the individual development and support of all students in the classroom and beyond.
Our program is grounded in the idea that interdisciplinary training in the physical sciences leads to a better understanding of living systems. Our majors choose to focus on either biophysics or biochemistry.
Angela T. Li, Peter B. Noël, Nadav Shapira article: "Automatic bolus trackingin abdominat CT scans with convolutional neural networks."
Marco A. Catipovic (BCBP '14) is one of " seventeen remarkable postdoctoral scientists who will receive independent funding ($231,000 each) to support their training as they embark upon their research careers in the labs of leading senior investigators. The prestigious, four-year Fellowship Award encourages creative and high-risk projects dedicated to the search for cancer causes, mechanisms, therapies, and prevention."
The Carl Brändén Award, sponsored by Rigaku Corporation, honors an outstanding protein scientist who has also made exceptional contributions in the areas of education and/or service to the field. The 2021 recipient of this award is Professor Sheila Jaswal (Amherst College). Professor Jaswal is an expert on kinetic and thermodynamic mechanisms for protein stabilization and an award-winning teacher. With a team of undergraduates, she has developed tools to better understand the diversity of protein folding kinetics and provided a theoretical framework for mapping energy landscapes under native conditions using hydrogen-exchange mass spectrometry. In response to a 2015 campus-wide Black Lives Matter protest, she collaborated with students to develop “Being Human in STEM” (HSTEM). In this moment of unprecedented recognition of racism in science, the HSTEM model offers a structure that welcomes participants in their complex intersecting identities, educates them about racism, and gives them practice with having difficult conversations, collaborating across differences, and making realistic and effective change.
Youna Choi '21 is one of six winners of the Biophysics Society Conferences Undergraduate Research Poster Competition. The other five winners were Shawn H. Lin, Wesleyan University; Lydia Good, Georgetown University; Daria Wonderlick, University of Oregon; David Tang, University of Chicago; and Adith Srivatsa, University of California, Davis.
Many students from Amherst College attended the Virtual Biophysical Society Conference this past February. Student members from Professor O'Hara's lab submitted posters: Yusrah Kaudeer '21 and Esi Obeng '22, as did Waleed Babar '21 and Danny Jeong '23. Student members from Professor Carter's lab also submitted posters: Youna Choi '21, Kyle Jones '21 and Donna Roscoe '21. Additionally, Professor Carter submitted a poster. Ryan McMillan '20 also attended the conference and presented his work from the Carter lab.
Congratulations to all!!
The faculty and staff of the Program in Biochemistry and Biophysics pledge to make our Amherst Community safe and supportive for ALL our students but most especially, Black students, faculty and staff who are marginalized, threatened and devalued as a result of our national and cultural structures of inequality. Linked here please find a statement by the Committee of Inclusion and Diversity of the Biophysical Society that captures our position.
Summer 2020 Amherst Magazine: Stories of Care, Courage, Practice and Progress
"I See People on the Worst Day of Their Lives," as told to Geoffrey Giller '10 by Anna Meyendorff '09
From letters and Zoom events to artwork and poetry, these students employed their unique intersection of talents to share what they learned about coronavirus in a manner accessible to their audience. Now, these students are not only sharing their work with you but also hope that you can use their projects to share this understanding with your loved ones. Read more...
Donna Roscoe '19 is one of five winners of the undergraduate research poster competition: Javier Vilcapoma, University of Albany; Jack Rubien, Swarthmore College; Steven Fried, University of Arizona; Mary Myers, Creighton University; and Donna Roscoe '19, Amherst College. Congratulations to all!!
This past Friday, December 14th, Muzhingi was named a 2019 Zimbabwe Rhodes Scholar. Created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes, the scholarship provides two or three years of study at Oxford. Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and other attributes.
He is one of three 2019 scholars representing Zimbabwe, selected from a pool of 100 applicants. The Rhodes Trust awards scholarships to 32 scholars each year in the United States and to more than 60 in 22 other regions or countries.
"Multi-phase volcanic resurfacing at Loki Patera on Io."
K. de Kleer, M. Skrutskie, J. Leisenring, A. G. Davies, A. Conrad, I. de Pater, A. Resnick, V. Bailey, D. Defrère, P. Hinz, A. Skemer, E. Spalding, A. VazC. Veillet, & C. E. Woodward
Nature 545, 199–202 (11 May 2017) doi:10.1038/nature22339
Biophysics offers a focus on computational and physical approaches to studying biological problems, whereas biochemistry emphasizes the tools and principles of molecular biology and biological chemistry.
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Our seminar series brings renowned biochemists and biophysicists (such as Professor Veronica Vaida of the University of Colorado, Boulder) to our campus and to other campuses in the Five College area.
Seminar Schedule
Many of our majors complete a senior honors project, under the guidance of one or more professors.
Learn moreAnalyze the structure and function of eukaryotic cells. Topics include cell surfaces and membranes, cytoskeletal elements and motility, cytoplasmic organelles and bioenergetics, and more.
A study of the structure and function of biologically important molecules and their role(s) in life processes, protein conformation and enzymatic mechanisms.
This laboratory and lecture course will focus on advanced quantitative fluorescence microscopy techniques, which offer a window to understanding the structure and function of living cells at sub-cellular resolution.
