In this project, three senior theoretical physicists will lead a group effort to ask ?what would a theoretical physics of living systems look like?? The project is based on the premise that certain broad theoretical problems, cutting across the traditional biological divisions of organism and system, can be used as a framework for the development of a new domain of theoretical physics. They include such questions as: How do living systems deal with noise in the many signaling modalities they employ? How do they set the parameters that govern their function (in particular, how do they learn from experience)? Is it possible, by making models of biological systems, to successfully use finite observations to predict behavior in novel situations? The solutions to these problems adopted by Nature in different biological contexts are often of similar mathematical structure and the proponents believe that an approach to biology organized around such common structures would be fruitful. The work will be structured as an activity in which group members are able to freely assemble into subgroups to tackle projects from disparate areas of biology and will involve a close partnership with experiment. The proponents have ten ongoing collaborations with labs, mostly local, on topics ranging from biochemistry to perceptual psychology, usually organized around novel questions for experimental investigation. A broadening and strengthening of this experiment-theory feedback loop to firmly ground theoretical speculation in reality is a major project goal.
The most important educational goal of the project will be the training of a new generation of physicists for whom the study of biological systems is a central part of their discipline. The postdoctoral scholars who pass through the group, already committed to a career in biological science, will learn by example how to pursue that goal in a way consistent with the intellectual rigor and traditions of physics. The impact of the project on education will extend to the undergraduate level through the generation of undergraduate research topics and the development of innovative approaches to the teaching of biology as quantitative science.
Funding for this project is provided through the Physics Division and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.
