The role of Physics in Biological Sciences has become even more critical in recent years. With the discovery and invention of instrumentation to study matter at the micro and nano levels such as the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) in 1982, and the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) in 1989, a very large area of biological systems have now been opened up for study and application. This new area in the micro and nano regime is rife with the need for analytical skills and application of physics for understanding and elucidation. In the nano regime the well-known classical laws of physics and its applied derivatives at the macro scale often do not hold, and so the need and for quantum physics and its application. Physicists are thus being sought at the frontiers of the study of biological systems in research and development, in nanotechnology, biotechnology and in the medical field.
In addition to the traditional career of physicists in research, education, and engineering, students with these concentrations will be better prepared to participate in cutting edge research in biological systems as biophysicists, do graduate studies in nanotechnology, biophysics, biotechnology, provide a new cadre of medical students and practitioners well equipped to tackle some of the tough questions requiring significant analytical and critical thinking skills to help come up with new solutions to improve the human condition. In medical education, physics majors have consistently outperformed almost all other majors in medical school entry test, the MCAT. (see http://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/undergrad/mcat-lsat1.pdf)