Biophysics: Searching for Principles, a 3-day conference surveying achievements at the interface of theoretical physics and biology, brings together world leaders in the field, experts on its educational challenges, and notable theorists from other areas of physics. The conference also celebrates the work of Prof. William Bialek, founder of the Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences and co-director of the Center for the Physics of Biological Function, a joint effort of Princeton University and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Program
WEDNESDAY 14 SEP
1:45 pm
Introduction from the organizers
2:00 pm
Cognitive maps and neural manifolds
David Tank, Princeton University
2:30 pm
The biological cell as a learning system
Naama Brenner, Technion, Israel
3:00 pm
Balancing: what, where, and what for?
Marcelo Magnasco, Rockefeller University
3:30 pm
Break
4:00 pm
Principles and rules in development? A call for theory!
Thomas Gregor, Princeton University
4:30 pm
From quantum tunneling to models for protein dynamics
Judith Klinman, University of California Berkeley
via Zoom
5:00 pm
BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE
Daniel Fisher, Stanford University
Phil Nelson, University of Pennsylvania
Sima Setayeshgar, Indiana University
Boris Shraiman, KITP, UC Santa Barbara
Eric Wieschaus, Princeton University
7:00 pm
Skylight Room Reception
THURSDAY 15 SEP
10:00 am
Heuristic bounds on superconducting Tc
Steven Kivelson, Stanford University
10:30 am
(Still) Searching for biophysical principles at the single-molecule level
Steven Block, Stanford University
11:00 am
To BB, or not to BB: that is the question
Adrienne Fairhall, University of Washington
11:30 am
Break
12:00 pm
Signatures of irreversibility in collective motion
Irene Giardina, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
12:30 pm
Maximally predictive states: from dynamics to information and back again
Greg Stephens, Vrije University, Amsterdam
1:00 pm
Lunch*
2:30 pm
Revisiting fundamental limits in biological decisions
Massimo Vergassola, ENS, Paris, France
3:00 pm
Deep learning for protein function prediction and design
Lucy Colwell, University of Cambridge
3:30 pm
Break
4:00 pm
Antibody binding affinity landscapes
Michael Desai, Harvard University
4:30 pm
Linking architecture and function of spiking neural networks
Elad Schneidman, Weizmann Institute, Israel
5:00 pm
BEYOND ACADEMIA ROUNDTABLE:
Moderator: Serena Bradde, American Physical Society
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google
Marc Potters, Capital Fund Management
Katherine Quinn, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University
Steven Strong
Chris Wiggins, Columbia University / The New York Times
FRIDAY 16 SEP
10:00 am
Protein sequence coevolution, energy landscapes and applications to predicting large protein structures
José Onuchic, Rice University
via Zoom
10:30 am
First-principles derivation of a genetic regular network
Gasper Tkacik, IST, Austria
11:00 am
Exploring biological probability distributions with Bill
Curtis Callan, Princeton University
11:30 am
Break
12:00 pm
Optimal estimation of wide field apparent motion
Robert de Ruyter van Steveninck, Indiana University
12:30 pm
Learning the shape of the protein universe
Armita Nourmohammad, University of Washington
1:00 pm
Lunch*
2:30 pm
Natural swarms in 3.99 dimensions
Andrea Cavagna, Institute for Complex Systems, Rome, Italy
3:00 pm
Information-preserving population vectors
Tatiana Sharpee, Salk Institute
3:30 pm
Break
4:00 pm
Complex systems with structured disorder
Marc Mezard, Bocconi University, Italy
4:30 pm
Predictions
William Bialek, Princeton University
5:00 pm
Closing remarks from the organizers
Most lectures from Day 2 and 3 are available for viewing on the ITS YouTube channel.
Roundtable Discussants:
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google
Serena Bradde, American Physical Society
Daniel Fisher, Stanford University
Phil Nelson, University of Pennsylvania
Marc Potters, Capital Fund Management
Katherine Quinn, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University
Sima Setayeshgar, Indiana University
Boris Shraiman, KITP, UC Santa Barbara
Steven Strong
Eric Wieschaus, Princeton University
Chris Wiggins, Columbia University / The New York Times
Organizers:
Thierry Mora, ENS, Paris, France
Ilya Nemenman, Emory University
David Schwab, CUNY Graduate Center
Aleksandra Walczak, ENS, Paris, France
Administrative Support:
Goeun Minshall, CUNY Graduate Center
Tiera Ward, Emory University
Speakers:
William Bialek, Princeton University
Steven Block, Stanford University
Naama Brenner, Technion, Israel
Curtis Callan, Princeton University
Andrea Cavagna, Institute for Complex Systems, Rome, Italy
Lucy Colwell, University of Cambridge
Michael Desai, Harvard University
Adrienne Fairhall, University of Washington
Irene Giardina, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
Thomas Gregor, Princeton University
Steven Kivelson, Stanford University
Judith Klinman, UC Berkeley
Marcelo Magnasco, Rockefeller University
Marc Mezard, Bocconi University, Italy
Armita Nourmohammad, University of Washington
José Onuchic, Rice University
Robert de Ruyter van Steveninck, Indiana University
Elad Schneidman, Weizmann Institute, Israel
Tatiana Sharpee, Salk Institute
Greg Stephens, Vrije University, Amsterdam
David Tank, Princeton University
Gasper Tkacik, IST, Austria
Massimo Vergassola, ENS, Paris, France
We are grateful for support from the National Science Foundation and the NSF Center for the Physics of Biological Function for making this conference possible.