Collaborative Research: Using the Physics of Living Systems Student Research Network to Transmit Techniques and Train Talent

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

The Physics of Living Systems (PoLS) is a diverse field and is composed of researchers and students from varied scientific backgrounds. No single institution can offer the breadth and depth of research and courses that both cover the relevant intellectual landscape and provide in-depth training for students. Such training is critical to create the next generation of researchers who can contribute to PoLS, with the ability to move between biology, physics, mathematics, and engineering. In addition, no single institution has the range of equipment needed to study PoLS on the enormous range of time and length scales encountered in biological systems. Finally, few single institutions can fruitfully integrate science and engineering to inspire biomedical, pharmaceutical, robotic, and prosthetic technologies that will result from basic PoLS research. This award’s activities will allow students to work across institutions and among various disciplines on living systems while maintaining the physics mindset (simplified systems, few parameters, predictive models) and developing new physics. The NSF Physics of Living Systems (PoLS) Student Research Network (SRN) strives to unite students and faculty working on the physics of living systems/biological physics at institutions ("nodes") within the US and internationally. This virtual network gives students at local nodes the ability to take advantage of global educational and research opportunities in PoLS. During the last period of funding members of the SRN continued to advance their respective PoLS programs and developed cohesive local communities. Students and faculty also participated in the SRN-wide annual meetings and activities at the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting, the Biophysical Society (BPS) meeting, and other scientific meetings. With this award, the team of investigators will develop a focused set of activities that will generate significant interactions and exchange between students from different nodes and the POLS community. The primary activity of this award is to develop a set of student-led, hands-on, short courses at node sites ("Hands-On PoLS Summer Schools"). Short courses will be held for a week each summer at each node and will train SRN students with both specialized and general techniques useful across PoLS disciplines. Each node will develop a suite of summer-school courses with themes that span different research interests and capabilities (e.g., microscopy, robophysics, image analysis), targeted for students from all nodes and other institutions in the SRN. This award will aid development of and sponsor travel support to the short courses. These activities will be augmented by research exchange visits among nodes within this proposal as well as in the broader iPOLS SRN. This award will also sponsor travel to diverse scientific meetings important to the student's specific research areas as well as to gain a broader perspective on PoLS. While this SRN seek to maintain ties to and cultivate insights from biology, medicine, and other relevant disciplines, a strong SRN will help demonstrate that fundamental living systems research has been and will continue to be done by physicists. The SRN students will be among the next generation of researchers and educators who will continue this trajectory. PoLS topics form natural recruitment vehicles for students into physics as well as interest the broader public, workforce, and administration. The SRN activities and eager students will leverage these strengths, for example disseminating such ideas to K-12 institutions, thereby increasing the flow of students into PoLS in universities. This award will promote to synergize these activities by running seminars showcasing SRN alumni with non-academic careers, thereby broadening the pool of researchers with the PoLS mindset. Investigators in this project will continue their commercialization efforts of technologies resulting from their research, adding this aspect to the US PoLS "ecosystem". This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.