2016_06_30_CIE_fisica

For the physicist from Pompeu Fabra University, an expert in the study of biological systems -such as cells, proteins or neurons- applying non-linear physics, the scientists' work must be put in the right temporal context: "The science we do now is not going to change the world tomorrow, nor is it going to cure cancer once a month, as is sometimes perceived in the media, but it is a medium-long term work deadline that will give results in 50 years". 

This is what the expert defended on the occasion of the VI School of Complex Systems of the Spanish Royal Society of Physics (RSEF), which is being held at the University of Navarra until July 2 and where 25 physics students from 12 countries are participating: Philippines, Chile, Canada, Argentina, Colombia, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Italy, Belgium and Spain.

result As Jordi García-Ojalvo explained, the vast majority of cellular behaviors are the result of the joint action of many genes and proteins, working in a coordinated manner at the same time. The same happens with the brain and the neurons that compose it: "It is like an orchestra where all the instruments need to be well combined, not doing the same thing, but not each one going its own way. With the added difficulty that living systems do not have director orchestra. What happens," adds the expert, "is that any behavior of cells, genes or neurons is the product of many interactions, and nonlinear physics allows us to understand, by means of mathematical models, how this behavior emerges.

Deciphering cancer or Alzheimer's disease

Among the fields in which Physics applied to Biology is oriented is the advance in the knowledge of complex diseases, such as autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases -such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's- or cancer. "We also work on how to eliminate the side effects of drugs, which are nothing more than an unwanted result of these interactions and, therefore, could be reversed."

Another topic addressed in this summer school has to do with out-of-equilibrium systems: "Living systems are out of equilibrium because they continuously absorb energy to create "orderedsubject ", such as cells and multicellular organisms. Physics has advanced considerably in this field in the last 30 or 40 years, but it is still complex to validate these theories in living systems", details the researcher. In this sense, Jordi García-Ojalvo insists on the need to invest in science, "with public taxes and private funds, at all levels and in all fields of science, since we do not know what knowledge will lead us to a great transformation. The transistors, for example, took half a century to change our world...".