In stark contrast to conventional physical systems, living systems are active (they consume and dissipate energy), far-from-equilibrium (traditional thermodynamics and statistical physics results are inadmissible) and highly stochastic (such that deterministic equations of motion cannot capture their dynamics). Fundamental open questions include how the defining attributes of living systems emerge at the organismal or individual-cell level, upon appropriately coarse-graining the underlying molecular dynamics, and what physical laws govern these dynamics irrespective of organismal and environmental details.

In contrast to traditional approaches focusing on the cartography of genetic networks and molecular details, this workshop will focus on the top-down physics approach: identifying predictive quantitative laws using high-precision experimental data and using them to provide predictive minimalist models for emergent dynamics of living systems under different time-dependent conditions. To this end, this workshop will bring together a diverse group of creative, interdisciplinary scientists who have developed unique approaches, high-precision experiments and theory, for addressing these questions. The goal is to accelerate confluence of ideas and approaches, from high-throughput quantitative experimental methods to theoretical physics approaches. We expect that scientific dialogues resulting from this workshop will significantly advance fundamental understanding of the quantitative rules governing dynamics of living systems.