Princeton University

The three-year program entitled Physical Limits and Biological Function will support the principal investigators as they lead a group of postdoctoral fellows in collaboration with researchers at the Lewis-Sigler Institute and the Center for Theoretical Science, as part of a broader theoretical effort at the interface of physics and biology. The group will be investigating key theoretical questions about the way in which the building blocks of life are organized to solve the problems essential for an organism’s survival, development and reproduction. More specifically, they will explore the idea that life’s solutions to these problems are not merely consistent with the laws of physics, but in many cases have been driven to the limits of what the laws of physics allow. As theorists, their goal is to turn this hypothesis about operation near the physical limits into a predictive theory, in the physics tradition, from which many aspects of the underlying biological mechanisms can be predicted. They will search for common theoretical principles that cut across many levels of biological organization, from the early events of embryonic development in fruit flies to the dynamics of sensorimotor control in primates and from lifestyle choices in bacteria to human perception.