Town meeting PoLNet3 Launch: Physics in Life and Medicine

14 October 2020
Virtual meeting via Zoom

Meeting Overview

This afternoon meeting will bring together the well established Physic of Life community to launch the third phase of the Physics of Life Network (PoLNET3; 2020-2023) together with the new Physics of Medicine arm (2020-2023). This interdisciplinary meeting will introduce the new ambitions of the network, and host funders and speakers from a diversity of related disciplines, invited panellists will help direct and answer questions. All are welcome to join this meeting but registration is required.

Purpose

The idea of this meeting is to bring together people from the life and physical sceinces to discuss and showcase the interdisciplinary collaborative opportunities and benefits of engaging with this network.

Who should attend?

This meeting should be of broad interest to anyone working within and across life and physical sciences. We invite participation from all interested parties including academics, clinicians, industrialists and UK funders who are interested in generating new collaborative research interactions at the physical/life sciences interface. 

Provisional programme

This provisional programme is based on UK time.

13.30	Tom McLeish FRS (PoLNET3 chair, University of York), Martin Cann (PoLNET3 co- chair, Durham University) and Steve Smye (PoLNET3 co-chair and Physics of Medicine chair, University of Leeds and KCL) Welcome and Introduction
13.45	UKRI (EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC) and Wellcome Funding opportunities for the UK Physics of Life community
Session one	Chaired by Steve Smye and Susan Short
14.00	Fiona Watt (Executive Chair of the Medical Research Council), King's College London, Investigating exit from the stem cell compartment in human epidermis
14.25	Graham Leggett (University of Sheffield) It’s quantum biology, Jim, but not as we know it
14.45	Patrick Maxwell (Regius Professor of Physic, University of Cambridge) ​Intersections between physics and life sciences; why do they matter, and how can we enhance them?
15.05	Bill Bialek (Princeton University) Taking theory seriously
15.25	Questions with panel discussion
15.45	Refreshment break
Session Two	Chaired by Tom McLeish and Olwyn Byron
15.55	Julia Yeomans (University of Oxford) Mechanobiology and active matter
16.15	​Mark Leake (University of York), B ​Biology matters in biology matter: developing new physics to understand condensed liquid states seen in living cells
16.35	​​Agnes Noy (University of York) Modelling DNA in complex 3D arrangements
16.55	​Matthias Ruth (Pro-VC University of York) Physics of 'life as we know it', and as we may not.
17.05	Questions with panel discussion
17.25	Meeting close from Tom McLeish
17.30	Virtual meeting social meet and greet - via Wonder (link provided within meeting)

Meeting recording

A recording of this meeting is now available via our YouTube channel.