Hong Qian

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Biography: Professor Qian (Q=Ch) received his B.A. in Astrophysics from Peking University in China in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 1989. Subsequently, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at University of Oregon and Caltech on biophysical chemistry and mathematical biology. Before joining the University of Washington, he was an assistant professor of Biomathematics at UCLA School of Medicine. From 1992-1994, he was a fellow with the Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology (PMMB), a NSF-funded multi-university consortium.

Professor Qian's main research interest is the mathematical approach to and physical understanding of biological systems, especially in terms of stochastic mathematics and nonequilibrium statistical physics. In recent years, he has been particularly interested in a nonlinear, stochastic, open system approach to cellular dynamics. Similar population dynamic approach can be applied to other complex systems and processes, such as those in ecology, infection epidemics, and economics. He believes his recent work on the statistical thermodynamic laws of general Markov processes can have applications in ecomomic dynamics and theory of values. In his research on cellular biology, his recent interest is in isogenetic variations and possible pre-genetic biochemical origins of oncogenesis.

Field(s) of Research: Chemical Reaction Networks, Stochastic Thermodynamics, Naturally Occurring Biological Computation

Related links

• Hong Qian's UW website.

Reference Materials

1. A simple theory of motor protein kinetics and energetics. II
2. An information theoretical analysis of kinase activated phosphorylation dephosphorylation cycle
3. Fluctuation theorems for a molecular refrigerator
4. Generalized Haldane equation and fluctuation theorem in the steady-state cycle kinetics of single enzymes
5. Mesoscopic nonequilibrium thermodynamics of single macromolecules and dynamic entropy-energy compensation
6. Nonequilibrium steady state of a nanometric biochemical system: Determining the thermodynamic driving force from single enzyme turnover time traces
7. Nonequilibrium steady-state circulation and heat dissipation functional
8. Nonequilibrium thermodynamic formalism of nonlinear chemical reaction systems with Waage-Guldberg's law of mass action
9. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and nonlinear kinetics in a cellular signaling switch
10. Open-system nonequilibrium steady state: Statistical thermodynamics, fluctuations, and chemical oscillations
11. Physical origins of entropy production, free energy dissipation, and their mathematical representations
12. Pumped biochemical reactions, nonequilibrium circulation, and stochastic resonance
13. Reducing Intrinsic Biochemical Noise in Cells and Its Thermodynamic Limit
14. Relative entropy: Free energy associated with equilibrium fluctuations and nonequilibrium deviations
15. Stochastic theory of nonequilibrium steady states. Part II: Applications in chemical biophysics
16. Stoichiometric network theory for nonequilibrium biochemical systems
17. Thermodynamic and kinetic analysis of sensitivity amplification in biological signal transduction
18. Thermodynamic constraints for biochemical networks
19. Thermodynamics of stoichiometric biochemical networks in living systems far from equilibrium