Soft Matter and Biophysics

Soft matter physics studies complex fluids: polymers, amphiphilic molecules, liquid crystals, and so on. It is a new and highly relevant approach for studying the physical properties of many living systems: cells, tissues, bacterial suspensions, and the growth of cancerous tumors. The molecules involved are the same, and the orders of magnitude of the mechanical properties are similar. Biological systems, however, have two important characteristics: specific interactions and the fact that they are not in equilibrium and consume energy on a local scale. Living systems therefore fall under what is known as “active matter.”

The research activities of the Soft Matter and Biophysics Chair draw on ideas from soft matter physics to develop a theoretical description of the physical properties of living systems. The general framework is that of active matter theory. The topics studied range from general properties of active matter to issues directly relevant to biology: active turbulence, orientation defects in monolayers of cells, cancerous tissue growth, cell motility, cilia beating, and the study of parameters that determine the volumes of the cell and the nucleus.

The objective of the course is to demonstrate how soft matter theory in general—and more specifically, active matter theory—enables a quantitative description of biological systems, from the cellular to the tissue level.