Decadal Assessment and Outlook on Biological Physics/Physics of Living Systems

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The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in a collaboration between the Board on Physics and Astronomy and the Board on Life Sciences, will organize and conduct a first decadal survey of biological physics/the physics of living systems (BPPLS). The study will assess the progress and developments in BPPLS over the past decade and explore promising new directions for the period 2020-2030. The proposed activity and report will have a significant impact on the future of research at the interface between the life sciences and physics across the field. It will identify new directions and new perspectives for the field and formulate guidelines for pursuing it to advance science efforts in the United States and abroad. The committee will include scientists with expertise to analyze and demonstrate the impact of the physics of living systems in modern science and technology. The proposed activity has intellectual merit in several capacities: (1) Identification and articulation of the scientific opportunities in the physics of living systems and science at the interface between physics and biology. The resulting report from the project will offer clear and broad guidance to those within these disciplines, to policymakers, and to other interested parties; (2) Participation in the assessment process for key questions and the applicability of physical tools and methods to biology can lead to fresh insights and new perspectives on compelling new areas of science; and (3) Using information on the impact that research on the physics of living systems has had and will continue to have will help identify opportunities and challenges associated with pursuing this research and ultimately place the field in the broader context of science.The project is jointly co-funded by the Physics Division, The Molecular and Cellular Biosciences Division, and the Integrative Organismal Systems Division.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.