Physics of Life Network 2 (PoLNet2)

“生命物理学”是EPSRC当前的一个重大挑战研究主题。这是一个非常富有成效的跨学科研究领域，对英国来说是一项战略投资，因为我们的研究基地有潜力在欧盟，美国和中国的最佳努力中做出领先贡献，即使我们在投资方面落后于这些国家。战略上的迫切需要来自：（一）软物质物理学、仪器（特别是成像）和计算物理学（包括大数据处理）的实验、理论和建模方面的新技术，以及（二）生物学挑战的丰富领域，这些挑战需要物理方法来解决从分子到群体水平的许多长度尺度的生物系统。这比第一个网络开始时更真实。（i）的例子是：先进的原子力显微镜的膜，高分辨率和3D方法在光学显微镜，高性能计算的复杂分子物质，“蛋白质物理学”的子字段，场理论相分离，粗粒化的大分子物质，活性软物质，非平衡热力学。（ii）的例子是：组织生长和形成，细胞分化，细胞环境感知，细胞膜筏，进化动力学，纤维自组装，分子马达。

The 'Physics of Life' is a current Grand Challenge research theme for EPSRC. It is a very fruitful interdisciplinary research field, and a strategic investment for the UK because of the potential our research base has to make leading contributions at or beyond the best efforts in the EU, USA and China, even though we lag behind these somewhat in investment. The strategic imperative arises from (i) the new techniques in experiment, theory and modelling from soft matter physics, instrumentation (especially imaging) and computational physics (including large data processing), together with (ii) a rich field of biological challenges that require physical methods to address at many length scales of biological systems from the molecular to population levels. This is even more true now than at the start of the first Network. Examples of (i) are: advanced AFM of membranes, high-resolution and 3D methods in optical microscopy, high-performance computing of complex molecular matter, the subfield of 'protein physics', field-theories of phase separation, coarse-graining in macromolecular matter, active soft matter, non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Examples of (ii) are: tissue growth and form, cell differentiation, cellular environment sensing, cell membrane rafts, evolutionary dynamics, fibrillar self-assembly, molecular motors.