What is Physical Biology?

'Physical Biology' was a research programme that strove to combine groundbreaking research in physics with top research in the life sciences. There is also an increasing amount of applications for Biophysics. Some of them can be found on the site about valorisation in Earth and Life Sciences, ALW.

Problem Definition
It is relatively hard for driven experimental researchers to keep up with specialist literature and contacts within their own discipline. Developments in related and now, to the belief of NWO, overlapping disciplines may be overlooked. Cooperation between physicists and biologists are expected to result in immediate new breakthroughs. Taking cognisance of each others fields of research will ensure that more attention will be drawn to new developments. And when applying new scientific insights, adjacent research fields will be considered expressly.

Objective
The Physical Biology programme was set up to encourage cooperation between biologists and physicists in the Netherlands. The aim was to initiate physical and biological research, that is innovative both from the physical and from a biological perspective.

The Physical Biology programme was limited to research on collective processes of intra-cellular and inter-cellular level, from a biological-physical perspective. Cooperation between the two disciplines is essential. Through this, the aim is to achieve a structural anchoring of physical and biological research and a sustainable cooperation between the two disciplines in the Dutch research field.

Themes
The programme included the following tracks:

• Innovative Research Programmes (IOPRO) that combine pioneering research in both disciplines
• Stimulant New research centers (Snook) that are more targeted at individual researchers.

Duration
The programme started in 2000 and ended in 2008.

Financing
The programme was financed by the NWO departments FOM (Fundamental Research on Matter) and ALW (Earth and Life Sciences).

Budget
The size of the budget for Physical Biology I was € 5,022,000, generated by ALW (27.5%), FOM (31.5%) and the General Board of NWO (41%). Physical Biology II had a budget of
€ 3,170,000. The budgets were equally generated by the FOM and NWO-ALW areas.