Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

SYGF: Guest Country Symposium France: Soft, Active and Alive: Emergent Properties in Living Matter

SYGF 1: Guest Country Symposium France: Soft, Active and Alive: Emergent Properties in Living Matter (SYGF)

Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 15:00–18:15, HSZ/AUDI

Biological systems are composed of molecular components similar to those found in soft matter, yet they exhibit extraordinary and often extreme material properties that are essential for the robustness of living cells, tissues, and populations. These remarkable properties frequently emerge from the multiple hierarchical levels of organization intrinsic to living matter. This guest country symposium with speakers from France and Germany discusses the active and hierarchical principles that apply across diverse biological scales, from molecular assemblies to cells, tissues and even swarms of animals, and their role in biology’s unique emergent properties.

	15:00	SYGF 1.1	Invited Talk: Liquid crystal geometries in type I collagen-based tissues — •Nadine Nassif
	15:30	SYGF 1.2	Invited Talk: Self-organization of the cytoplasm by physical instabilities — •Jan Brugues
	16:00	SYGF 1.3	Invited Talk: From morphogenesis to space partitioning by microtubules and molecular motors. — •Manuel Thery
	16:30		15 min. break
	16:45	SYGF 1.4	Invited Talk: More than the sum: how composite interfaces govern function — •Alba Diz-Muñoz
	17:15	SYGF 1.5	Invited Talk: Swimming and Swarming of Intelligent Active Particles — Segun Goh, Priyanka Iyer, Rajendra Singh Negi, and •Gerhard Gompper
	17:45	SYGF 1.6	Invited Talk: Perturbing the collective motion of fish with challenging environments — •Aurélie Dupont