Evolution Seen from the Phase Diagram of Life

Shigeki Mitaku has been a Professor at the Department of Applied Physics, Nagoya University, Japan, since 2003. His research interests lie in the biophysics of proteins, membranes and genome sequences, particularly in their macroscopic properties. His research methods include experiments such as ultrasonic and spectroscopic measurements, as well as computational analysis of amino acid and genomic sequences. He has been a board member of the Physical Society of Japan, since 1997, president of the Biophysical Society of Japan, since 2006, and a visiting fellow of Toyota Physical and Chemical Research Institute, since 2013. His publications include 'Introduction to Molecular Biology' (2002, in Japanese) and 'A Modern Approach to Biological Science' (2015, in Japanese). His translations include 'The Edge of the Unknown' by J. Trefil (1996) and 'How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 6th Edition' by R. A. Day and B. Gastel (2006).Ryusuke Sawada has been an Assistant professor at the Department of Pharmacology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Japan, since 2022. His research interests include the biological evolution of genomes and protein sequences, and computational methods for drug development.

• Chapter 1. Organisms viewed from real space and sequence space.- Chapter 2. The relationship between biology and physics.- Chapter 3. Three-dimensional structures of proteins responsible for biological functions.- Chapter 4. Molecular devices that support genome processing.- Chapter 5. Biological membranes and membrane proteins.- Chapter 6. Signal transduction and enzymatic metabolic reactions in living organisms.- Chapter 7. System biology and protein structure prediction by computer.- Chapter 8. Similarities in order formation in matter and organisms.- Chapter 9. Protein distribution analysis by a high-precision prediction system for membrane proteins.- Chapter 10. : Changes in the proportion of membrane proteins by mutation simulation.- Chapter 11. Habitable zone in nucleotide composition space: Phase diagram of life.- Chapter 12. Relationship between the phase diagram of life and protein distribution.- Chapter 13. Definition of species and mysteries of evolution.- Chapter 14.Biological hierarchies and various mutations in genome sequences.- Chapter 15. Analysis of viruses, and the fusion of biology and physics through the phase diagram of life.