UCLA Physics and Astronomy Professor Robijn Bruinsma lectured students Nov. 17 about the recent research from the physics community on the behavior of the AIDS virus.
Bruinsma described the behavior of the virus from its maturity stages to its fragility through a PowerPoint presentation.
Bruinsma also discussed physical probes developed in recent decades such as Atomic Force Microscopy, Cryo-TEM Tomography and Optical Tweezers.
“The talk [was] an adaptation of a research seminar I recently gave at Cornell University,” Bruinsma said.
Bruinsma said that recent efforts of other biophysicists to understand better how the AIDS virus works “have revolutionized biophysical research on viruses.”
Bruinsma has written three papers on the biophysics of retroviruses, the family to which HIV belongs,.
Bruinsma’s talk was based on his latest paper, which was published in the European Physical Journal last September.
“I thought it was really nice, and it gave me a different spin on how I see viruses,” Sylvie Sanders ’15 said. “It really does give me a new perspective and the knowledge he provided changed how I saw the viral vector.”
Science teacher Antonio Nassar set up the lecture, which was a follow up to his lecture on the mathematics behind viruses he did in 2009.