PFC: Center for the Physics of Living Cells

以定量的、基于物理的方式描述复杂的生命系统是极其困难的。通过这个物理学前沿中心奖，活细胞物理学中心(CPLC)将实验学家和理论家聚集在一起，特别是在细胞层面上，解决物理学和生物学之间的技术挑战。通过开发和部署来自实验、理论和计算物理的新技术，CPLC将创造一个关于活细胞的动态叙事，将物理描述从分子尺度扩展到整个细胞和多细胞集合。探索实时分子力学和中等尺寸系统的统计物理等主题将为生物学和物理学领域提供信息和推动。CPLC的活动将促进物理学和生物学交界处的多学科科学家的培训和发展，包括为本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员举办的“训练营”和暑期学校讲习班。CPLC还将针对高中教师和学生、双语社区和普通公众开展不同的外展项目。CPLC寻求将对细胞功能的理解从分子水平转变到宏观水平，进行交流，对外部刺激做出反应，甚至进化。将通过各种研究活动实现这些目标，包括开发新的生物物理技术，这些技术可以测量单个分子和细胞，并观察细胞如何相互作用来创造新的现象。另一项活动涉及细胞内复杂性的量化，包括RNA和蛋白质动力学的测量。进一步的研究包括探索多细胞系统的性质是如何从单细胞的相互作用中产生的。CPLC的实验学家和理论家将密切合作，开发新的多尺度计算工具，在广泛的时间、尺度和复杂性上模拟系统。这个物理前沿中心奖是由物理部的物理前沿中心计划和数学和物理科学局化学部的生命过程化学计划以及生物科学局分子和细胞生物科学部的分子生物物理学计划共同资助的。

Describing complex living systems in a quantitative, physically-based manner is extremely difficult. Through this Physics Frontiers Centers award the Center for the Physics of Living Cells (CPLC) brings experimentalists and theorists together to address the technical challenges at the interface of physics and biology specifically on the cellular level. By the development and deployment of novel techniques from experimental, theoretical, and computational physics, the CPLC will create a dynamic narrative of living cells, expanding the physical description from molecular scales to whole cells and multicellular collections. Exploring such topics as real-time molecular mechanics and the statistical physics of intermediate size systems will inform and advance areas in both biology and physics. CPLC activities will foster the training and development of multidisciplinary scientists at the junction of physics and biology, including ''bootcamps'' and summer school workshops for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers. The CPLC will also operate diverse outreach programs targeting high school teachers and students, bilingual communities, and the general public.The CPLC seeks to transform the understanding of how cells function from molecular to macroscopic scales, communicate, respond to external stimuli, and even evolve. These goals will be approached through a variety of research activities including the development of new biophysical techniques that can measure individual molecules and cells and observe how cells interact to create new phenomena. Another activity concerns the quantification of intracellular complexity, including the measurement of RNA and protein dynamics. Further investigations involve probing how the properties of multicellular systems arise from the interactions of single cells. Experimentalists and theorists at the CPLC will collaborate closely to develop novel multi-scale computational tools to simulate systems on a wide range of times, scales, and complexity.This Physics Frontiers Centers award is co-funded by the Physics Frontiers Centers program in the Division of Physics and the Chemistry of Life Processes Program in the Division of Chemistry within the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and by the Molecular Biophysics program in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences within the Directorate for Biological Sciences.