Sector of Biological and Soft Systems (BSS)
The 21st Century promises a major expansion at the interface of physics with the biological sciences and nanotechnology. These are areas which fall outside the conventional boundaries of the scientific disciplines of Chemistry, Physics and Biology, requiring a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach. The Biological and Soft Systems Sector of the Cavendish Laboratory (BSS), formed in 2004, is pursuing such multidisciplinary research. Using techniques and inspirations from classical polymer physics, soft matter physics and the physics of condensed matter, we build on this foundation with exciting progress in protein folding, biomaterials, cell biophysics and nanoscience, using theoretical, computational, and experimental methods. The BSS Sector is ideally placed, with the right expertise, to be a major player in these exciting new areas of science.
BSS is also a significant part of the Physics of Medicine initiative, and much of our research activity now takes place within the new Centre for the Physics of Medicine.
Our Key Strengths are:
News
25 January 2012
BSS helps IOP launch new Biological Physics site The Institute of Physics has launched a new online resource to further the teaching of biological physics. BSS academics Professor Athene Donald and Dr Pietro Cicuta contributed to the project and both give video interviews on their work and perspective on the area.
Recent Publications
- Carbon-nanotube sensitized nematic elastomer composites for IR-visible photo-actuation, J.E. Marshall, Y. Ji, N. Torras, K. Zinoviev, E.M. Terentjev, Soft Matter 8 1570–1574
- Theory of thermally activated ionization and dissociation of bound states, Alessio Zaccone and Eugene M. Terentjev, Physical Review Letters 108 038302
- Graphene-nanoplatelet-based photomechanical actuators, J. Loomis, B. King, T. Burkhead, P. Xu, N. Bessler, E.M. Terentjev, B. Panchapakesan, Nanotechnology 23 045501
- Networked and chiral nanocomposites from ABC triblock terpolymer coassembly with transition metal oxide nanoparticles, M. Stefik, S. Wang, R. Hovden, H. Sai, M. W. Tate, D. A. Muller, U. Steiner, S. M. Gruner, U. Wiesner, J. Mater. Chem. 22 1078-1087
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- Related institutions and initiatives
- Cavendish Laboratory
- Electron Microscopy Suite
- Cambridge Nanoscience Centre
- Physics of Living Matter
- Physics of Medicine