* Structure determines property which determines function
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* Function is often about transduction (e.g., conversion of energy) and optimisation of efficiency, speed, and selectivity.
* Water is an amazingly unique substance.
* The hydrophobic interaction has a big effect on how proteins fold and the emergence of other biomolecular structures. (A dry protein is a dead protein!)
* The hierarchy of energy, time, and length scales.
* Both excitonic and vibrational energy transfer occurs via resonant energy transfer.
* Hush-Marcus theory describes electron transfer in proteins and elucidates the role of the environment.
* The size of kBT sets the scale for many phenomena.
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* Entropy and Gibbs free energy (the chemical potential) are key concepts.
* Entropy describes elasticity of DNA, the hydrophobic interaction, and concentration gradients producing electrochemical potential differences.
* Transition metals play a key role in many biomolecular functionalities.
* The interplay of Emergence and reductionism associated with the hierarchy of energy, time, and length scales.
* What details matter? Physicists say none, chemists, most, and biologists all!
* Biochemistry is the search for the chemistry that works.
* Enzymes work by lowering the energy of the transition state over which the reaction proceeds.
* Biomimetics: understanding the underlying physical principles behind specific biomolecular functionalities (e.g., conversion of light energy to chemical energy) may allow us to design synthetic analogues which have optimum efficiency.
* Skepticism I. Heed Kauzmann's maxim: people will tend to believe what they want to believe rather than what the evidence before them suggests they should believe.
* Skepticism II: just because someone can do a simulation on a computer that looks what you expect to see does not mean:
1. the simulation is reliable, reproducible, and correct
2. you actually understand the phenomenon that is being simulated.
* More skepticism: von Neumann on wagging the elephants trunk.
* Biological physics vs. Biophysics vs. Biologists using tools that physicists invented
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