8

1.3  Makeup of the Subsequent Chapters in This Book

highly focused area of the life sciences, whereas the latter lies within the expertise of the phys­

ical scientist, engineer, or mathematician who has a professionally critical knowledge of the

techniques that could be applied. A more efficient approach, which has been demonstrated

in numerous exemplar case studies across the world, is to engage in a well-​balanced collab­

orative research between biologists and physical scientists. This strategy, however, is far from

a smooth path to navigate. There are not insignificant cultural, language, and skill differences

between these two broad areas of science, as well as potential political challenges in deter­

mining who is actually “driving” the research. The strategy is decoupled from the approach

of a biologist who generates a list of questions they wants to address and asks the physical

scientist to find the best tool, as it is from the physical scientist who makes less than robust

efforts to explain the tools to the biologist in ways that do not demand a grasp of advanced

mathematics.

In an ideal world, the interaction between biologists and physicists would be a genuinely

dialectical process that could involve, as an example, the biologist explaining the background

to their questions and the physical scientist engaging the biologist in the science behind their

techniques that ultimately may not only alter the choice of tools to use from the toolbox but

also may change the biological questions that are actually asked in light of what specific tasks

the tools can, and cannot, perform. It is not rocket science. It is a simple manifestation of

respect for the expertise of others.

However, a key challenge for the physical scientist is to encourage the expert biologist to

be bold and think “big”—​what are the really difficult questions that often are the elephants in

the room that do not get addressed during a typical grant proposal? This freedom of scientific

thought can be genuinely infectious to tackling difficult biological questions once started.

One cannot simply cut and paste physics onto biology, that’s not how it works. But it is pos­

sible to inspire people to think beyond their comfort zones, and in doing so achieve some­

thing much higher.

For example, what drives the development of tools to add to the physical sciences

toolbox? Thinking on the theme of hypothesis-​driven versus exploratory research, the

development of new tools is often driven by exploration. This, in turn, then leads to a

greater space over which to develop hypotheses. An interesting contemporary example

of this is the terahertz spectroscopy, which we will discuss in Chapter 5. The original

conception of the terahertz spectroscopy had no biological hypothesis behind it but

stemmed from the scientific exploration into the states of condensed matter; however,

it is now emerging as a method that can inspire biological hypotheses, that is, do cer­

tain biomolecules inside cell membranes convey biological information using quantum

mechanical (QM) processes?

Another important word of warning, for which the reader should be duly cautious, is

the differences between these physical science tools and the tools that someone embarking

on a DIY project may utilize. Physical science tools for investigating challenging biological

questions are often expensive, challenging to use, and require sometimes significant levels

of expertise to operate. They are thus decoupled from a relatively simple hammer for fixing

fence posts or a cheap screwdriver used for assembling flat-​pack furniture.

However, provided one is appropriately mindful of these differences, the concept of a suite

of physical science tools that can be applied to investigate the complexities of life sciences

is useful in steering the reader into learning a sufficient background of the science and

applications of these techniques to inform their choices of using them further. This is not to

say that this book will allow you to instantly become an expert in their use, but rather might

offer sufficient details to know which tools might, or might not, be relevant for particular

problems, thus permitting you to explore these tools further directly with the experts in these

appropriate areas.

1.3  MAKEUP OF THE SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS IN THIS BOOK

Although much of the book describes experimental biophysical tools, a substantial portion is

dedicated to theoretical biophysics tools. Naturally, this is an enormous area of research that