Unlocking the physics of life
UKRI’s Physics of Life programme brings physicists and life scientists together to transform our understanding of living systems and medical science challenges.
Collaborations like these require scientists to understand each others’ language and concepts, which takes time. However, this approach can empower researchers to look at scientific challenges in new ways.
The first phase of this programme has seen researchers using new approaches from physics to address key life-science problems including: how bacteria resist antibiotics, how air pollution affects the cells in our lungs, how plants know when it's safe to flower and how moths change sound waves to camouflage themselves from predators.
The engineering of tomorrow will use the fundamental science of today, so we expect this research to have significant national and international impacts on society including public health, the environment and future medicines. Physics of Life is funded by the UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund, delivered by EPSRC, MRC and BBSRC.
Physics of Life builds on a decade-long focus with the research community to bring together physics and the life sciences to improve our understanding of living systems. Through a wide range of innovative approaches, these projects will generate important new knowledge that will help us to answer some of science’s biggest problems.
One of the unique strengths of the UK science ecosystem, and our new research agency UKRI is the ability to bring different sciences together - to unlock new discoveries and solve the big challenges of our day. From new carbon capturing algae to mapping brain functions, the Physics of Life programme is funding exciting new approaches with potentially major societal benefits.
How moths inspired new soundproofing metamaterials.
The wings of certain moths have the amazing ability to absorb sound including those used by bats for hunting, making them much harder to detect. Researchers are now studying these wings in order to reproduce these properties and develop new sound-proofing metamaterials.
Researchers aim to reveal how the underlying biomechanical processes of moth wings can be translated into prototypes of novel sound absorbent materials using imaging, modelling, lithography and fabrication.
The Physics of Life Biological Metamaterials for Enhanced Noise Control Technology project is led by Professor Marc Holderied at the University of Bristol and Professor Richard Craster at Imperial College London.
How do antibiotics kill bacteria?
A study by the University of Sheffield uses advanced microscopy techniques, biochemistry and mathematical modelling to help us understand how antibiotics kill bacteria. Researchers are integrating physics and biology approaches to enable the bridging of scales from the molecular to the person to reveal vulnerabilities that can be exploited to target resistant bacteria.
This understanding is important not least because it is estimated that, without new intervention, by 2050 antimicrobial resistance will cause 10 million deaths a year, so the team are investigating how "superbugs" like MRSA become so resistant.
The Physics of Antimicrobial Resistance study is led by Professor Jamie Hobbs and Professor Simon Foster at the University of Sheffield.
How plants know when it's safe to flower.
The Physics of Life Biological physics of protein clustering in epigenetic memory and transcriptional control project is a collaboration between the John Innes Centre and the University of York. The project aims to unlock the role of protein clustering in cell memory systems and in mediating gene repression, utilising an interdisciplinary approach with advanced imaging, modelling and genetics.
This work could help us understand other processes in living systems including, for example, how cells differentiate and how some cancers develop.
How air pollution affects our cells and health.
A team at Imperial College London is conducting sophisticated research to assess the impact of air pollution on personal health in urban environments. The team have collected air quality data and samples around West London, and from sensors worn by individuals participating in their clinical study, to find out about their exposure and health response to airborne pollution.
INHALE will develop a physics based, multi-scale approach across biological length scales from the cell, lung, and person, up to the neighbourhood scale.
The Physics of Life project Health assessment across biological length scales for personal pollution exposure and its mitigation (INHALE ) is a multidisciplinary research project, led by Professor Christopher Pain and Professor Fan Chung.
Built with Shorthand