Graduate Program in Biophysics

The discipline construction of the Graduate Program in Biophysics began in College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University. The Graduate Program in Biophysics was approved to grant Ph.D. and Master degrees in the winter of 2002, and began to enroll Doctoral and Master’s candidates in the fall of 2004. The Graduate Program in Biophysics was transferred to the newly established College of Science to continue its construction in the fall of 2006. The Institute of Biophysics, Northwest A&F University was established in College of Science with the approval of the Discipline Construction Office of the University in the winter of 2010. At present, Biophysics is the key constructed interdiscipline of the College of Science, Northwest A&F University.

Biophysics is a science in which the theories, technologies and methods of physics are used to study on the physical properties of life substances, the physical laws of life processes, and the mechanism of physical factors on biological systems. It is a new interdisciplinary subject formed by the combination of physics and biology, which is one of the most rapidly developing disciplines in contemporary natural science. Focusing on the four academic missions of Northwest A&F University, i.e. “ensuring national food security, maintaining ecological civilization, promoting human health and serving rural revitalization”, the Graduate Program in Biophysics is a discipline with a remarkable interdisciplinary characteristic, which mainly deals with problems of biophysics in agriculture, food science and health biology.

The Graduate Program in Biophysics (071011) is a secondary discipline subordinated to the primary discipline of the Graduate Program in Biology (0710). It mainly has three research directions: Molecular and Cellullar Biophysics, Environmental Biophysics and Theoretical Biophysics.

①Molecular and Cellullar Biophysics mainly analyzes the ultrastructure and physicochemical properties of animal and plant materials and reveals the biophysical laws of growth and development, pathophysiology, processing and storage from the molecules, cells, tissues and other perspectives, and provide theoretical basis and technical support for the development of agriculture, food science and health biology and the related industries;

② Environmental Biophysics mainly focuses on the studies of the physical processes and mechanisms of energy transmission and substance convey during the growth and development of major crops, post-harvesting storage and transportation under the conditions of climate change, drought stress and facility agriculture so as to provide a theoretical basis for the practical application of physical factors in crop yield and quality improvement;

③ Theoretical Biophysics uses statistical physics and other theoretical means to study various dynamic processes in life phenomena, such as the dynamics of molecular motor and cytoskeleton, and tries to explain the physiological functions of substance convey and cell movement in cells.