[Free energy of biological systems]

The generalization of the Gibbs potential to open spatially inhomogeneous systems is given. This generalization is based on the abandonment of the local equilibrium hypothesis and the introduction of the specific parameters of spatial inhomogeneity: thermodynamical forces and the coordinates of useful works. The existence of the potential state function whose decrease determines the algebraic sum of useful (external) and dissipative (internal) works executed by the system was justified. This function presents the difference between the internal energy of the spatial inhomogeneous system and its homogeneous parts and was named (owing to its independence from the pathways of processes in the space of thermostatic variables) the general thermodynamic potential. It was demonstrated that the application of this potential to biological systems permits one to trace their development for each of their intrinsic degrees of freedom, to combine the thermodynamic and kinetic approaches to the problems of their evolution, to find a criterion of maturity of a biological organism and a general measure of the orderliness of the biosystem, to find the driving forces of biological processes, and confirm the possibility of development of biosystems without the equilibrium state.