Principal Investigators Arup Chakraborty , Nikta Fakhri , Mehran Kardar , Leonid Mirny , Jeff Gore , Max Tegmark
Co-investigators Alfredo Alexander-Katz , Mark Bathe , Ila Fiete , Joern Dunkel , Chunte (Sam) Peng
Project Website http://cpls.scripts.mit.edu/wordpress/
Project Start Date March 2022
The mission of Physics of Living Systems @ MIT is to advance our understanding of living systems across scales and to train the next generation of leaders pushing the forefront of research at the interface of physics and biology. PLS brings together biophysics and soft matter researchers from across the Department of Physics at MIT. Research is conducted in eight different groups that include a total of over 70 scientists, as well as by the PLS Postdoctoral Fellows, a group of independent researchers working alongside and contributing to the PLS community.
The field of biophysics has experienced tremendous growth and excitement in recent years, with areas of focus ranging across all scales, from the structural organization of polymers to the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of populations. Graduate students and postdocs in the Physics of Living Systems Group benefit from an interactive and supportive intellectual community, and the Department collaborates with the wider biophysics community at MIT to bring researchers together via:
(*) Weekly biophysics seminar series. (*) Periodic PLS short talks Fridays at 4pm. (*) Monthly faculty chalk talks. (*) Opportunity for graduate students to earn a Graduate Certificate in Biophysics. (*) Annual overnight retreat on Cape Cod.
In addition to these community activities, the PLS faculty are deeply engaged in their educational mission. Biophysics research within the Department spans many scales, from the structural organization of polymers to the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of populations.