Physics of Life
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    • PoL SPF link
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  • PoLNET3
    • Steering Group
    • Physics of Life Roadmap
    • Funding Opportunities >
      • EDI award
      • PoLNET PDRA Call 2023
    • Early Career Researchers
    • Events >
      • PoLNET3 Past Events >
        • Physics of Life 2025
        • Physics of Life PDRA Recipient Event
        • BBS Biennial Meeting 2024
        • Biofilaments Workshop 2024
        • Winter School: challenges and opportunities in Physics of Life
        • Non-equilibrium explorations on the physics of life : remembering the biological physics of Tom McLeish
        • NOTICE - Novel Optical Technology in Cardiac Electrophysiology
        • Physics of Life Summer School 2022
        • Motility in Microbes, Molecules and Matter 2
        • Tissue dynamics
        • Physics of Life: ECR bootcamp
        • Physics of Life 2023
        • Cutting-edge methods for bacterial pathogen interactions with host cells
        • Motility in Microbes, Molecules and Matter
        • Periodic patterns
        • Physics of Life ECR workshop
        • Physics of Life/iPoLS seminar
        • Biophysics and evolution
        • Launch
  • Physics of Medicine
    • Steering Group
    • Physics of Medicine Events >
      • Past Events >
        • Translational Ageing
        • Tackling drug resistance in cancer
        • Inflammatory Bowel Disease
        • Physics of Viruses
        • Antimicrobial Resistance
        • Metastasis Workshop
        • Neurodegenerative disease
        • Physics of Brains
  • POLNET 2
    • PoLNET2 team
    • Student Summer Bursaries 2019
    • Events >
      • PoLNET2 Past Events >
        • Sandpits
        • Past summer schools >
          • Summer School: Physics of Life Summer School: From Cells to Tissues and Organisms
          • Summer School: New approaches to Biomolecular function, structure and dynamics
        • Physics of Life Town Meetings >
          • Town Meeting 2019
          • Town Meeting 2018
          • Town Meeting 2017
        • Past Workshops >
          • QMGR V
          • Non-equilibrium Cold Plasmas in Biology and Medicine
          • The Fundamentals of Late Stage Cancer
          • The Physics of Evolution
          • Nanostructures at Soft Interfaces: Technology and Biophysics
          • Physics of Biological Oscillators
          • The Future of Optical Techniques in Biology
          • Tom McLeish's Durham farewell symposium
          • Multiscale mechanics in Biology
          • Epigenetics
          • Physics of Animal Health
          • Interdisciplinary Challenges in Non-Equilibrium Physics
          • Cancer Workshop
          • QMGR
          • Symmetry
          • Nanofluidics
          • Quantum Biology
          • Antimicrobial Resistance
          • Filaments and Cellular Responses
          • Biocomputation
          • Workshop Reports
  • PoLNET 1
    • PoLNET 1 Team
    • PoLNET1 Past Events >
      • Launch meeting 2013
      • Plenary Event 1: The Living Cell
      • Plenary Event 2: Synthetic Biology
      • Plenary Event 3: Multicellularity
      • Focussed Workshops >
        • 1: The Physics of Bacterial Infection
        • 2: Forces in Biology
        • 3: Life in Extreme Environments
        • 4: The Physics of Cancer
        • 5: Information Flow in Biological Systems
        • 6: Pattern Formation and Morphogenesis
        • 7: Compartmentalisation & Confinement
        • 8: Physics of Bacterial Biofilms
        • 9: Cancer Sandpit
      • Summer/Winter schools >
        • Summer School
        • Winter School
      • Final Summit
    • Roadmap for Biological Physics
  • Useful Links
  • Contact us
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet the team
    • Our network
    • IoP Rosalind Franklin Medal
    • PoL SPF link
    • EDI policy
    • Privacy Notice
  • PoLNET3
    • Steering Group
    • Physics of Life Roadmap
    • Funding Opportunities >
      • EDI award
      • PoLNET PDRA Call 2023
    • Early Career Researchers
    • Events >
      • PoLNET3 Past Events >
        • Physics of Life 2025
        • Physics of Life PDRA Recipient Event
        • BBS Biennial Meeting 2024
        • Biofilaments Workshop 2024
        • Winter School: challenges and opportunities in Physics of Life
        • Non-equilibrium explorations on the physics of life : remembering the biological physics of Tom McLeish
        • NOTICE - Novel Optical Technology in Cardiac Electrophysiology
        • Physics of Life Summer School 2022
        • Motility in Microbes, Molecules and Matter 2
        • Tissue dynamics
        • Physics of Life: ECR bootcamp
        • Physics of Life 2023
        • Cutting-edge methods for bacterial pathogen interactions with host cells
        • Motility in Microbes, Molecules and Matter
        • Periodic patterns
        • Physics of Life ECR workshop
        • Physics of Life/iPoLS seminar
        • Biophysics and evolution
        • Launch
  • Physics of Medicine
    • Steering Group
    • Physics of Medicine Events >
      • Past Events >
        • Translational Ageing
        • Tackling drug resistance in cancer
        • Inflammatory Bowel Disease
        • Physics of Viruses
        • Antimicrobial Resistance
        • Metastasis Workshop
        • Neurodegenerative disease
        • Physics of Brains
  • POLNET 2
    • PoLNET2 team
    • Student Summer Bursaries 2019
    • Events >
      • PoLNET2 Past Events >
        • Sandpits
        • Past summer schools >
          • Summer School: Physics of Life Summer School: From Cells to Tissues and Organisms
          • Summer School: New approaches to Biomolecular function, structure and dynamics
        • Physics of Life Town Meetings >
          • Town Meeting 2019
          • Town Meeting 2018
          • Town Meeting 2017
        • Past Workshops >
          • QMGR V
          • Non-equilibrium Cold Plasmas in Biology and Medicine
          • The Fundamentals of Late Stage Cancer
          • The Physics of Evolution
          • Nanostructures at Soft Interfaces: Technology and Biophysics
          • Physics of Biological Oscillators
          • The Future of Optical Techniques in Biology
          • Tom McLeish's Durham farewell symposium
          • Multiscale mechanics in Biology
          • Epigenetics
          • Physics of Animal Health
          • Interdisciplinary Challenges in Non-Equilibrium Physics
          • Cancer Workshop
          • QMGR
          • Symmetry
          • Nanofluidics
          • Quantum Biology
          • Antimicrobial Resistance
          • Filaments and Cellular Responses
          • Biocomputation
          • Workshop Reports
  • PoLNET 1
    • PoLNET 1 Team
    • PoLNET1 Past Events >
      • Launch meeting 2013
      • Plenary Event 1: The Living Cell
      • Plenary Event 2: Synthetic Biology
      • Plenary Event 3: Multicellularity
      • Focussed Workshops >
        • 1: The Physics of Bacterial Infection
        • 2: Forces in Biology
        • 3: Life in Extreme Environments
        • 4: The Physics of Cancer
        • 5: Information Flow in Biological Systems
        • 6: Pattern Formation and Morphogenesis
        • 7: Compartmentalisation & Confinement
        • 8: Physics of Bacterial Biofilms
        • 9: Cancer Sandpit
      • Summer/Winter schools >
        • Summer School
        • Winter School
      • Final Summit
    • Roadmap for Biological Physics
  • Useful Links
  • Contact us

From Molecules to Systems

Towards an Integrated Heuristic for Understanding the Physics of Life

The goal of our Network is to bring physicists and biologists to work together to tackle the challenge of integrating understanding from single molecules to systems in biology

The integration of understanding across length-scales is a problem of central importance in modern biology. Biochemistry describes molecular behaviour in a reductionist fashion that is very different from the approaches of systems biology, and yet we know that the fates of whole organisms, or ecosystems, are determined by molecular scale phenomena. The integration of understanding across length scales has also been a central challenge in physics, for example in statistical mechanics, where quantum mechanical understanding is integrated into descriptions of large ensembles of molecules.

Background to the Physics of Life Network

The ‘Physics of Life’ (PoL) is an EPSRC current Grand Challenge research theme, first launched in 2012 by a NetworkPlus grant. The first phase of the grant (PoLNET1) ran from 2012-2016 with the overall aim: ‘to develop a unified framework for understanding biology that integrates the molecular and the system levels of thinking into a coherent, unified whole’.
 
During this first phase a coherent interdisciplinary Biological Physics community was created. This community was fostered through a series of core activities (including plenary events, a series of facilitated 2-day residential workshops and early career researcher summer schools; see Past Events within PoLnet1), as well as a small number of collaborative research programmes which provided the basis for the launch of a number of major research initiatives.
 
It was decided that the critical mass established from PoLNET1 should continue and the community should be taken forward by a second phase (PoLNET2) which EPSRC/BBSRC have now awarded funding.
 
PoLNET2 commenced in 2017 and is now being run from Durham University. It is envisaged that the second phase of this network will take the community on towards active research programmes, new topics, and continue to grow interdisciplinary connections in a sustainable way. PoLNet2 recognises that the environment is now different and ready for a new phase of activity. It constitutes an efficient way to realise the initial recommended actions of the ‘Roadmap for the Physics of Life’. There are 6 objectives and associated activities:

PoLNet2 Objectives

  1. Develop the research questions from PoLNet1 into active research programmes
  2. Continue to create a pipeline of new PoL research challenges
  3. Move to a sustainable UK PoL community by working very closely with British Biophysical Society (BBS) and the IoP  Biological Physics Group (BPG), and partner universities
  4. Grow the community of biologists who engage with the PoL community, its activities (the role of BBSRC is crucial here, as is the Crick Institute) and subsequent research programmes, working jointly with EPSRC and BBSRC and other funders to address wherever possible the highlighted topics of BBSRC with the collaborative science of EPSRC.
  5. Extend the Network by research partnerships with the relevant industrial sector (through a series of industry-oriented workshops) building on IoP and BBS links.
  6. Deliver a resource of pedagogical material for PoL, online and through graduate schools
In order to create a pipeline of new PoL research challenges, we are proposing a number of new topics for PoLNet2 workshops:

Proposed topics for new PoLNet2 workshops

Plant growth mechanics and signalling    
New horizons in bioimaging
The physics of epigenetics    
Bioenergy in processing of biological waste
Control of cell shape, size, in eukaryotes    
Evolution and statistical mechanics
Engineering biomimetic machines    
Phase-separation/transition in biological systems
Quantum biology     
Protocells
Biophysics of ageing    
Novel strategies in drug discovery and biologics
PoLNET2 will work closely alongside its partner institutions and universities:

PoLNet2 Partners

Durham University (Lead institution)    
Bristol University     
Cambridge University
Crick Institute (from 2017)    
Edinburgh University     
Glasgow University
John Innes Centre    
Leeds University    
University of Liverpool
Oxford University    
Sheffield University    
Southampton University
York University    
British Biophysical Society    
IoP Biological Physics Group

Funded by:                                                                                                 Managed bY:

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