Imperial College Network of Excellence in Physics of Life
Biological Physics Journal Club (2020)


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: Luca Cocconi
Time: Fridays 2-3pm
Venue: Due to the closure of the College, our meetings will be on Microsoft Team accessible by members

Click here for the current schedule

Jan 10 Presenter: Luca Cocconi
Paper: Zur H and Tuller T (2016)
Predictive biophysical modeling and understanding of the dynamics of mRNA translation and its evolution
Nucleic Acids Research 44, 9031
Jan 17BPJC presenter: Maksym Romenskyy
Paper: Harpaz R, Tkačik G, and Schneidman E (2017)
Discrete modes of social information processing predict individual behavior of fish in a group
PNAS 114, 10149
Jan 24BPJC presenter: Gunnar Pruessner
Paper: Stenhammar J, et al. (2013)
Continuum Theory of Phase Separation Kinetics for Active Brownian Particles
PRL 111, 145702
Jan 29 Invited seminar: Holger Kress (University of Bayreuth)
Physical determinants of the cellular uptake and intracellular transport during phagocytosis
Time: 1-2pm; Venue: SAF G34
Jan 31BPJC presenter: Henry Cavanagh
Paper: Weinreb C, et al (2018)
Fundamental limits on dynamic inference from single-cell snapshots
PNAS 115, E2467-E2476
Feb 7BPJC presenter: Andrew Killeen
Paper: Barton D L, et al. (2017)
Active Vertex Model for cell-resolution description of epithelial tissue mechanics
PLoS Comput Biol 13, e1005569
Feb 21BPJC presenter: Jenny Poulton
Paper: Piñeros W D and Tlusty T
Kinetic Proofreading and the Limits of Thermodynamic Uncertainty
arXiv:1911.04673
Feb 28BPJC presenter: Jacob Cook
Paper: Yamagishi J F, Saito N, and Kaneko K (2020)
Advantage of Leakage of Essential Metabolites for Cells
Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 048101
Mar 6BPJC presenter: Chiu Fan Lee
Paper: Mueller R, Yeomans J M, and Doostmohammadi A (2019)
Emergence of Active Nematic Behavior in Monolayers of Isotropic Cells
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 048004
Mar 13BPJC presenter: Gcina Maziya
Gompper G, et al. (2020)
The 2020 motile active matter roadmap
J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 32 193001
May 1 Presenter: Ziluo Zhang
Paper: Tailleur J and Cates M E (2008)
Statistical Mechanics of Interacting Run-and-Tumble Bacteria
Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 218103
May 15 Presenter: Thibault Bertrand
Paper: Atia L et al. (2018)
Geometric constraints during epithelial jamming
Nature Physics 14, 613-620
May 22 Presenter: Andrea Cairoli
Paper: Buchmann B et al. (2019)
Mechanical plasticity of the ECM directs invasive branching morphogenesis in human mammary gland organoids
bioRxiv:10.1101/860015
June 5 Presenter: Zigan Zhen
Paper: Reimann P, et al (2001)
Giant Acceleration of Free Diffusion by Use of Tilted Periodic Potentials
Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 010602
Jun 12 Presenter: Jessica McQuade
Paper: Barbier I, Perez Carrasco R, and Schaerli Y (2019)
Controlling spatiotemporal pattern formation in a concentration gradient with a synthetic toggle switch
bioRxiv:10.1101/849711
Jun 19 Presenter: Keith Willison
Paper: Hill J, et al (2019)
Recurrent convergent evolution at amino acid residue 261 in fish rhodopsin
PNAS 116, 18473
Jun 26 Presenter: Andrew Killeen
Paper: Li X, Das A, and Bi D (2019)
Mechanical Heterogeneity in Tissues Promotes Rigidity and Controls Cellular Invasion
Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 058101
Jul 3 Physics of Life Symposium
Speakers: Chris Dunsby, Robert Endres, Rosalba Garcia Millan, Nate Goehring, Chiu Fan Lee, Jenny Poulto, Gunnar Pruessner, Andela Šarić, and Giovanni Sena
Jul 10 Presenter: Ben Partridge
Paper: Jeon J-H, et al. (2016)
Protein Crowding in Lipid Bilayers Gives Rise to Non-Gaussian Anomalous Lateral Diffusion of Phospholipids and Proteins
Phys. Rev. X 6, 021006
Jul 24 Presenter: Maksym Romenskyy
Paper: Bastien R and Romanczuk P (2020)
A model of collective behavior based purely on vision
Science Advances 6, eaay0792
Sept 11 Presenter: Gunnar Pruessner
Paper: Kostinski S and Reuveni S (2020)
Ribosome Composition Maximizes Cellular Growth Rates in E. coli
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 028103
Sept 18Physics of Life Network seminar series: Margaret Gardel (Chicago)
Mechanical Homeostasis in the Actin Cytoskeleton
Time: 3-4pm
Sept 25Presenter: Jenny Poulton
Paper: Murugan A, Zou J and Brenner M P (2015)
Undesired usage and the robust self-assembly of heterogeneous structures
Nature Communications 6, 6203
Oct 2 Presenter: Henry Cavanagh
Paper: Liu M et al. (2018)
Temporal processing and context dependency in Caenorhabditis elegans response to mechanosensation
eLife 7, e36419
Oct 9Presenter: Jacob Cook
Paper: Grilli J (2020)
Macroecological laws describe variation and diversity in microbial communities
Nature Communications 11, 4743
Oct 23Presenter: Keith Willison
Paper: Lai M, et al (2015)
Modulation of Calmodulin Lobes by Different Targets: An Allosteric Model with Hemiconcerted Conformational Transitions
PLoS Comput Biol 11, e1004063
Oct 30 Physics of Life Network seminar series: Nigel Goldenfeld (UIUC)
Is there universality in biology?
Time: 3-4pm
Nov 6Presenter: Chiu Fan Lee
Paper: Agudo-Canalejo J and Golestanian R (2019)
Active Phase Separation in Mixtures of Chemically Interacting Particles
Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 018101
Nov 13Presenter: Jessica McQuade
Paper: Brauns F, Halatek J, and Frey E (2020)
Diffusive coupling of two well-mixed compartments elucidates elementary principles of protein-based pattern formation
Preprint: arXiv:2010.15095
Nov 20Presenter: Thibault Bertrand
Paper: Copenhagen K et al. (2020)
Topological defects induce layer formation in Myxococcus xanthus colonies
Preprint: arXiv:2001.03804
Nov 27 Physics of Life Network seminar series: Arvind Murugan (Chicago)
Neural network-like collective dynamics in molecules
Time: 3-4pm
Dec 4Presenter: Luca Cocconi
Paper: Antebi Y E, et al. (2016)
Combinatorial Signal Perception in the BMP Pathway
Cell 170, 1184
Dec 11 Physics of Life Network seminar series: Greg Stephens (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Theory, reimagined
Time: 2-3pm
Dec 18Presenter: Andrew Killeen
Paper: Balasubramaniam L, et al. (2020)
Nature of active forces in tissues: how contractile cells can form extensile monolayers
BioRxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.28.358663.