301400 VU Fundamentals of Quantitative Biology (2025S)

Our understanding of fundamental biological processes at the molecular level is becoming progressively quantitative. We can measure with an ever increasing precision the concentrations, lifetimes and energy levels of different molecular players and assess with an ever increasing certainty their cellular locations, molecular partners and functional roles. As a consequence, quantitative approaches have become an indispensable part of modern molecular biology toolkit, with computational modeling and statistical analysis playing a central role. This course aims to develop an in-depth knowledge of the quantitative aspects of molecular processes in biology, the ways to study such processes using analytical and computational models, and the fundamentals of statistical data analysis from both theoretical and practical perspectives. As a means of integrating these three areas, developed and presented in a series of theoretical lectures, the students will learn the elements of Python programming in a set of practical exercises of increasing complexity, which will also enable them to read, critically understand, and modify complex, advanced programs and pipelines as necessary.