Integrate physics and chemistry concepts into relevant biological contexts.

What biologists often realize is that you can’t have biology without chemistry, but what isn’t realized is that physics is also a big part in biology.

First, we are going to start with chemistry, which is an integral part of biology. Many of the parts of an organism rely on such aspects, like pH, how molecules interact in an aqueous environment, proteins, etc. While at Longwood, I took a course that did in fact combine both concepts called Biochemistry. This course looked into how proteins interacted and are formed, how nucleic acids were twisted and formed, etc. Within this course, we learned a lot about how biology couldn’t go without chemistry in order to understand everything completely. An example of combining both elements is when I took the second semester of Organic chemistry. This professor does research on parabens, or antimicrobial substances, that are used in cosmetics, shampoos, etc. These substances have been linked to interact with the estrogen receptor and can make breast cancer worsen. He wanted to show us how parabens are made and their antimicrobial properties. We wrote a paper on this project, and a link to that paper can be found below. Outside of the classroom, I have been performing a senior thesis project combining both elements as well. My project is on how gallate esters, a possible alternative to parabens, can alter the immune system. Below is a youtube video link to watch a presentation of mine that I presented at a conference.

Physics on the other hand, may be harder to make a connection to biology. After taking an anatomy course, I realized that there is a lot of physics in the biology world that we may not notice. One might say gravity could be an obvious one, but often I think about eyes. When light is originally presented to the eyeball, it is refracted to hit the back of the retina, but this isn’t the same for everyone. Sometimes the light goes beyond the retina, and sometimes it goes right in front of the retina, naturally. This is why glasses were invented, so that the light could have an obstacle to refract and make the light go directly onto the retina in order to make someone see better. Another way physics is used in biology is through the muscles, or a better example, how the heart pumps blood to the rest of the body. The heart uses mechanisms to be able to pump blood throughout the whole body, using physics to be able to do this.

Both topics are necessary for a future doctor, and an aspiring Ophthalmologist, because they are important to the world of biology. For chemistry as a doctor, it is important to understand the range of normality for pH within the body, and even what kind of medicines the patient is taking. This is important because some medicines don’t mix well with others, and can cause detrimental effects to the human body. For physics, it is important, if I am to become an Ophthalmologist, then to be able to describe to a patient what glasses actually do in order to make someone see better.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qYkwLA9wvhDC6xlP_UAD26lKmdC9SUXS0lmERS-ZgL8/edit?usp=sharing