Research

One of the core foci of current research in biophysics and systems biology is the behaviour of large assemblies, ranging from cellular scales (cells that form tissues, bacteria that aggregate into colonies) up to macroscopic phenomena in flocks and swarms on the one hand, and down to the molecular scale on the other where self-organization can lead to the formation of organelle-like structures within cells even without biological membranes.

A theoretical understanding of these systems is crucial for progress, with potential impacts both on fundamental research questions and on global challenges including the Sustainable Development Goals such as Health and Wellbeing, via applications in wound healing and cancer metastasis. But such progress is often impeded by the complexity of the systems, in particular the emergence of collective behaviour that cannot be deduced straightforwardly from the properties of the constituents (cells, bacteria etc).

Statistical mechanics offers an ideal set of tools for dealing with this challenge. Originally developed to understand physical systems, it provides concepts that lend themselves naturally to understanding emergence and a modelling perspective that is based on useful abstractions such as active particles as elementary constituents, combined with techniques of analysis that are designed precisely to understand collective behaviour.