BioReAct

Unusual material deformations or sustained material movements are key dynamic properties in responsive and active materials, respectively. While responsive materials change drastically their physicochemical properties in response to an external stimulus, active materials transduce energy into mechanical forces, thereby leading to a variety of emergent phenomena such as self-propulsion and patterning formation. Can we use active matter to engineer novel responsive materials? Can we link non-equilibrium physics to material science in an attempt to apply dynamics and fluctuations to the design of smart materials?

This satellite meeting seeks bringing together researchers from these fields, soft matter physics and material science, to open a new avenue of biophysical matter research built on the knowledge gained over these years on both the building blocks and the fundamental interactions that drive the behavior of active systems. Understanding the dynamics of these elements enables the development of synthetic materials that either mimic behaviors found in living matter or exploit the elements to improve materials properties.