Abstract
Three interrelated biologically-relevant examples of biased random walks are discussed: DNA melting, modeled as DNA unzipping, which provides a way to illustrate the role of the Boltzmann factor in a context well known to biology and pre-medical students; the activity of helicase motor proteins in unzipping double-stranded DNA, which is an example of a Brownian ratchet; and force generation by actin polymerization, which is also a Brownian ratchet, and for which the force and actin-concentration dependence of the velocity of actin polymerization is determined.
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