Imperial College Network of Excellence in Physics of Life
Biological Physics Journal Club (2023)


Our weekly Physics of Life seminars and journal clubs at Imperial College covers a wide range of topics in biological and soft matter physics. It aims to provide a highly interactive platform to facilitate discussion between researchers from different departments. Anyone is welcome and you can subscribe to the mailing list here. Regular attendees of the BPJC are expected to present on a rotational basis at the BPJC.

BPJC organiser: Patrick Jentsch
Time: Fridays 2-3pm [Unless indicated otherwise]
Venue: Sir Ernst Chain Building Rm. 319, South Kensington Campus

Upcoming meetings
Sep 22Presenter: Robert Endres
Paper: Christopher W. Lynn, Caroline M. Holmes, William Bialek, and David J. Schwab (2022)
Emergence of local irreversibility in complex interacting systems
Phys. Rev. E 106, 034102
Sep 29Presenter: Sam Whitby
Oct 6Presenter: Eloise Lardet
Oct 13 Presenter: Patrick Jentsch
Oct 20 Presenter: Keith Willison
Oct 27 Presenter: Thibault Bertrand
Nov 3 Presenter: Antonio Matas Gil
Nov 10 Presenter: Chiu Fan Lee

Past meetings
Jan 13Seminar: Jack Binysh (Bath)
Active Elasticity
Jan 20Presenter: Chiu Fan Lee
Paper: A Testa et al (2021)
Sustained enzymatic activity and flow in crowded protein droplets
Nature Communications 12, 6293
Jan 27Physics of Life Network seminar series
Ben Simons (Cambridge)
Spermatogenesis: a paradigm of stem cell regulation
Time: 3-4pm; Venue: G47A Flowers
Feb 3Presenter: Charlotte Manser
Paper: Julie Klepstad and Luciano Marcon (2023)
A Clock and Wavefront Self-Organizing model explains somitogenesis in vivo and in vitro
bioRxiv 2023.01.18.524516
Feb 10Presenter: Sulaimaan Lim
Paper: Kiandokht Panjtan Amiri, Asa Kalish, and Shankar Mukherji (2023)
Robustness and Universality in Organelle Size Control
Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 018401
Feb 17Presenter: Ruben Perez-Carrasco
Paper: Wang et al. (2022)
Periodic spatial patterning with a single morphogen
Cell Systems 13, 1033
Feb 24Presenter: Alastar Phelan
Paper: Rodrigo García-Tejera, et al., (2022)
Regulation of stem cell dynamics through volume exclusion
Proc. R. Soc. A. 478 20220376
Mar 3Presenter: Eloise Lardet
Paper: Nico Schramma, Cintia Perugachi Israëls and Maziyar Jalaal (2023)
Chloroplasts in plant cells show active glassy behavior under low-light conditions
PNAS 120, 3
Mar 10Presenter: Henry Alston
Paper: Billie Meadowcroft, Ivan Palaia, Anna-Katharina Pfitzner, Aurélien Roux, Buzz Baum, and Anđela Šarić (2022)
Mechanochemical Rules for Shape-Shifting Filaments that Remodel Membranes
Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 268101
Mar 17Physics of Life Network seminar series
Isabella Guido (Surrey)
Bottom-up engineering of bioinspired active systems for biological activity
Mar 24Presenter: Patrick Jentsch
Paper: van der Kolk et al. (2022)
Anomalous collective dynamics of auto-chemotactic populations
arXiv: 2209.01047
Apr 21Physics of Life Network seminar series
Victor Sourjik (Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology)
Physics, physiology and evolutionary optimization of bacterial motility
Apr 28Presenter: Gunnar Pruessner
Paper: Demarchi et al (2023)
Enzyme-Enriched Condensates Show Self-Propulsion, Positioning, and Coexistence
Phys. Rev. Lett. 130 128401
May 5Physics of Life Network seminar series
Martin Howard (John Innes Centre)
Setting timescales for epigenetic switching
May 12Presenter: Keith Willison
Zhou et al. (2023)
Engineering longevity—design of a synthetic gene oscillator to slow cellular aging
Science 380, 376–381
May 19Presenter: Jacob Knight
Paper: Marbach, Zheng and Holmes-Cerfon (2022)
present “The nanocaterpillar's random walk: diffusion with ligand–receptor contacts
Soft Matter 18, 3130-3146
May 26Presenter: Robert Endres
Paper: Tom W Hiscock and Sean G Megason (2015)
Orientation of Turing-like Patterns by Morphogen Gradients and Tissue Anisotropies
Cell Syst 1, 408-416
Jun 2Presenter: Sam Whitby
Paper: A Klosin et al (2020)
Phase separation provides a mechanism to reduce noise in cells
Science 367, 464-468
Jun 16Presenter: Thibault Bertand
Paper: Hopkins et al., (2022)
Local Yield and Compliance in Active Cell Monolayers
PRL 129, 148101
Jun 23Presenter: Charlotte Manser
Paper: Calderwood et al. (2021).
Comparative transcriptomics reveals desynchronisation of gene expression during the floral transition between Arabidopsis and Brassica rapa cultivars
Quantitative Plant Biology 2, E4
Jun 30 Physics of Life Network seminar series
Uli Gerland (Technical University of Munich)
Spatially orchestrated reaction kinetics in biological systems
Time: 12-1pm; Venue: RSM 303
Jul 7 Presenter: Jacob Knight
Paper: Villa-Torrealba, Navia, and Soto (2023)
Kinetic modeling of the chemotactic process in run-and-tumble bacteria
Phys. Rev. E 107, 034605
Jul 13 Imperial Physics of Life - Early Career Researchers Summer Symposium 2023
Jul 21Presenter: Alastar Phelan
Paper: Jolly et al., (2022)
CycleFlow simultaneously quantifies cell-cycle phase lengths and quiescence in vivo
Cell Reports Methods 2, 10
Jul 28Presenter: Henry Alston
Paper: Bonazzi et al. (2018)
Intermittent Pili-Mediated Forces Fluidize Neisseria meningitidis Aggregates Promoting Vascular Colonization
Cell 174, 143
Sep 1Presenter: Sulaimaan Lim
Paper: De Leon, M.P., Wen, FL., Paylaga, G.J. et al. (2023)
Mechanical waves identify the amputation position during wound healing in the amputated zebrafish tailfin
Nat. Phys.
Sep 8Presenter: Ruben Perez-Carrasco
Paper: Rory J. Maizels, Daniel M. Snell, James Briscoe (2023)
Deep dynamical modelling of developmental trajectories with temporal transcriptomics
bioRxiv 2023.07.06.547989
Sep 15Presenter: Gunnar Pruessner
Paper: A. P. Solon and J. Tailleur (2015)
Flocking with discrete symmetry: The two-dimensional active Ising model
Phys. Rev. E 92, 042119


BPJC in 2022
BPJC in 2021
BPJC in 2020
BPJC in 2019
BPJC in 2018
BPJC in 2017
BPJC in 2016