Class: October 10th 2007

Today we first reviewed the paper about integrins. I tried to make you understand why integrin are important and, specially, why integrin clustering is relevant and worth to study. Thus, we reviewed the main results of the paper and showed that integrin clustering is driven by both ligand binding and temperature. We also saw how the knowledge that you got in class can be applied to real problems to calculate Gibbs energy, entalphy, and entropy changes. In the second part I introduced non-equilibrium thermodynamics in its simplest version: the linear approach (also known as linear response). We also reviewed the Prigogine theorem in regard of minimization of entropy production. Next day we will continue with non-equilibrium thermodynamics and we will check out the first paper (the lambda phage one).

P.S. Today you let me know that ONLY gmail accounts can access to the Blog: please get one account by following THIS link. Gmail is THE BEST on-line mail system, you won't regret getting that account. Please consider also subscribing to the feed (see my post on October 9th) to get informed about new posts in an automatic way without checking out the blog continuously. Starting tomorrow access to the blog will be restricted to those that have registered.