Collaborative Research: PoLS Student Research Network

该合作研究项目由四个机构(莱斯、耶鲁、伊利诺伊大学和普林斯顿大学)组成，旨在延续生命系统物理学学生研究网络(PORS SRN)。这个网络已经存在了四年，对美国和国外的许多研究生产生了巨大的影响，他们致力于将物理科学技术应用于生命系统。这些学生现在可以参与一个全球社区，这个社区可以帮助处理在这样一个新的、内在的多学科领域进行研究所涉及的许多复杂问题。这些问题从适当的培训，到获得广阔的视角，到获得本国机构可能无法获得的技术专长。除了与培训研究人员有关的明显的更广泛的影响外，该计划还有其他广泛的影响。通过其中一个POLS节点(莱斯)与休斯顿生物医学社区的互动，学生和教职员工将接触到物理学可以为人类健康问题做出贡献的可能途径。用于吸引任职人数不足群体的学生参加网络会议的资金将通过新提议的网络协调员管理的新资金提供。此外，经过POLS的审查，SRN将被用于在科学和工程的其他领域创建学生网络。到目前为止，人们几乎没有异议，即物理学的概念和方法是增加对生活世界的理解的关键贡献者，随着科学世界朝着更加定量和更具预测性的生物学形式发展，物理学的重要性将越来越大。因此，物理学界显然需要培养能够领导这一努力的新一代科学家，他们是具有恰当的物理/数学严谨性和从分子水平以上的生命系统的广泛知识的科学家。POLS SRN旨在创建一个研究生社区，他们可以集体帮助自己和他们的导师加快和加强这一培训过程。这是通过面对面和虚拟通信模式的混合进行的，这项提议是继续和扩大这些努力的计划；它将接触到更多的学生，改进社交网络门户网站，并利用不同网络节点的互补研究议程来提供广泛的技术专长。所有这一切，将提高整个研究领域的智力水平，并让最好的学生相信，生命系统物理确实是21世纪科学中最令人兴奋的研究前沿。该项目得到了物理学部的生命系统物理学计划、分子和细胞生物科学部的分子生物物理学集群、化学部的生命过程化学计划和综合有机体系统部的细胞动力学和功能计划的联合支持。

This collaborative research project, consisting of four institutions (Rice, Yale, UIUC and Princeton) aims to continue the Physics of Living Systems Student Research Network (PoLS SRN). This network has been in existence for four years and has had a dramatic impact on many graduate students, both in the US and abroad, working on the application of physical science techniques to living systems. These students now can participate in a global community that can help deal with the many complex issues involved in conducting research in such a new and inherently multidisciplinary field. These issues range from proper training, to gaining a broad perspective, to accessing technical expertise that may not be available at their home institution. In addition to the obvious broader impacts related to training of a research workforce, there are other broad impacts of this plan. Via the interaction of one of the PoLS nodes (Rice) with the biomedical community in Houston, students and faculty will be exposed to possible avenues whereby physics can contribute to human health issues. Funds to attract students from under-represented groups to network meetings will be available through the new funds administered by the newly proposed network coordinator. Also deas vetted by the PoLS SRN will be adapted to create student networks in other areas of science and engineering.There is by now little disagreement with the general notion that concepts and methods from physics have been a critical contributor to the increased understanding of the living world, and that its importance will be growing as the scientific world moves toward an ever more quantitative and predictive form of biology. Thus, the physics community clearly needs to train a new generation of scientists who can lead this effort, scientists who have the right mix of physics/mathematics rigor and broad knowledge of living systems from molecular scales on up. The PoLS SRN aims at creating a community of graduate students who can collectively help themselves and their mentors accelerate and enhance this training process. This is being done by a mix of in-person and virtual modes of communication, and this proposal is a plan to continue and expand these efforts; it will reach more students, improve the social networking portals, and make use of the complementary research agendas of the different network nodes to provide broad technical expertise. Doing all of this, will boost the intellectual level of the entire research field and convince the best students that the Physics of Living Systems is truly the most exciting research frontier in 21st century science.This project is being jointly supported by the Physics of Living Systems program in the Division of Physics, the Molecular Biophysics Cluster in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, the Chemistry of Life Processes program in the Division of Chemistry, and the Cellular Dynamics and Function Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems.