The Physics of Living Matter

Our group, established in January 2022, ultimately seeks to uncover the physical principles that govern the phenomena of life. In particular, we develop the physics of active matter to understand collective behaviors in cells and tissues. The group's research topics include collective cell migration, self-organization in bacterial colonies, active turbulence, mechanochemical patterns in tissues, mechanically-regulated tissue growth, and active fluctuations in cells. This work puts concepts from statistical physics, soft matter, and fluid dynamics in contact with important questions in biology.

We perform our theoretical research in close collaboration with experimentalists, both internationally and in Dresden. To this end, we are members of the Center for Systems Biology Dresden (CSBD), and we have strong connections with the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), and the Physics of Life Cluster of Excellence (PoL) of the Technical University Dresden (TUD).

Our work is funded by the Max Planck Society and by an ERC Starting Grant.