Physics of Life
The Physics of Life theme combines new biophysical and imaging approaches to explore dynamic processes in biomolecules, organelles, cells and organisms.
Insights from Physics research bring the opportunity to create novel biosensing technologies. We are advancing the frontiers of spatial resolution with light microscopy, atomic resolution with cryo-electron microscopy, temporal resolution with millisecond hydrogen/deuterium-exchange mass spectrometry, and sensitivity with novel single-molecule and single-cell detection methods.
Challenges we address include the dynamics of cellular behaviour during signalling, growth, or differentiation. We also explore the emergence of dynamics in neural circuits in animals and humans and how these can go wrong in disease. A further challenge is to understand how cellular couplings and hydrodynamics lead to large-scale coordination of cellular projections such as cilia or flagella, and how cells and small organisms move and react to stimuli. Non-linear computational models are developed in collaboration with Maths of Life colleagues.
Finally, we investigate the inner working of biological processes. This includes the astonishing emergent concept, dubbed Quantum Biology, which revolutionises the traditional description of life processes, built over the last century, by suggesting direct reliance on quantum phenomena. Specifically, we explore this question through experimental and theoretical studies of magnetoreception and biological magnetosensitivity, to assess its putative quantum underpinning.
Contributing research groups

Kattnig Group
CryoEM of protein assemblies and molecular machines

Gielen Group
high-throughput microfluidic imaging

Gold Group
Structural Cell Biology

Goodfellow Group
Mathematical modelling and analysis for living systems

Jekely Group
Neural circuits and behaviour

Kattnig Group
Quantum Biology and Computational BioPhysics

Moebius Group
Effects of the physical world on dynamics in biological systems

Pagliara Group
Membrane transport in living systems

Phillips Group
Protein choreography group

Richards Group
Mathematical Modelling of Living Systems

Ryu Group
Developmental neurobiology of stress response

Scholpp Group
Contact-mediated signalling in development and disease

Vollmer Group
Optical microsensors for detecting physical, chemical and biological properties of single molecules

Wan Group
Biophysics of microbial motility and behaviour

Wedgwood Group
Collective dynamics in biological networks

Williams Group
Microsporidia diversity and host-parasite interactions