Events

Biophysics

Workshop organized by F. Seno

Towards modeling living matter: a survey of problems at the interface of statistical physics and modern biology.


As detailed high quality experimental data are becoming available today, statistical mechanics is playing a fundamental role in the development of quantitative approaches to describe biological systems, providing the theoretical background for the physical description of such interacting many-body systems. This is possible both for the intrinsic ability of statistical physics to bridge the gap between microscopic details and mesoscopic behavior and because it offers a different approach to look at questions of biological and physiological origin, as it asks how order and correlation emerge in an environment where disorder and noise play a key role. As an example of this fruitful synergy it is sufficient to think at how many concepts derived from equilibrium and out of equilibrium statistical physics are currently employed to obtain coarse grained models for biological systems, from molecular to cellular and ecological level.


The aim of our workshop is to cover several new developments and challenges in such a rapidly growing interdisciplinary research area. Reflecting these purposes, the objectives of the meeting include:


- defining the state of the art of impressive success of statistical physics methods applied to model and to analyse complex systems coming from biology and identifying weakness and opportunities;
-facilitating the exchange of ideas and the cross dissemination of different approaches and techniques;
-identifying the combination of methods, skills and cross-disciplinary expertise that are in the highest demand;
-promoting the transfer of knowledge between experienced and younger researchers.


Topics include:

Protein folding and dynamics
Protein misfolding and aggregation
Physical properties of DNA and RNA
Protein-Protein and Protein-DNA interaction
Dynamic and elastic properties of biomembranes
Molecular motors
Cell motility
Molecular evolution
Gene expression and regulation
Biological and cellular networks …….

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