The American Physical Society (APS) plans to hold a topical conference entitled """"""""Opportunities in Biology for Physicists, II"""""""" in the San Diego area in late January 2004. The conference is aimed predominantly at graduate students and postdocs in physics who are considering applying the methods of physics to biological topics. However, all those who are interested in entering the broad interdisciplinary area, or advising others who will do this, will be welcome. Physicists and biologists who are leaders in their field will be asked to give introductory overviews of five broad areas of the interface between physics and biology. In addition, there will be a panel of young researchers who will discuss their careers and in particular how they moved their research fields from physics to the biology/physics interface. Rapid strides are occurring in biology, where enormous technical and conceptual progress has been made in the last 10 years. Biology is changing from a descriptive to a quantitative and conceptually profound field. The conference is aimed at making the physics community more aware of the revolution occurring in biology. We believe that physics will make a substantial contribution to this revolution, particularly if biologists and physicists work together at this critical time.
