BPS2026 – Instrument, measure, model, and control: A directed walk through things biological

While many important discoveries are made using existing instruments, a novel instrument designed for other applications or developed specifically to conduct previously impossible measurements offers (but does not guarantee) the possibility of revealing the unknown. This talk presents examples drawn from a 55-year career in biological and applied physics to demonstrate the societal benefits of a research trajectory whose direction was determined equally by chance, opportunity, enthusiasm, and foresight. One might not be able to predict a priori that undergraduate training in building instruments to demonstrate superfluidity and the AC Josephson effect would lead to a deeper understanding of fluctuations in a quantized variable; that an unfulfilled desire to measure the magnetic field of the human brain by adapting a magnetic shield and magnetometer intended for developing a satellite test of Einstein’s predictions of general-relativity frame dragging and geodetic effects would lead to an understanding of the information content of the magnetocardiogram and magnetoencephalogram; or that the combination of the first measurements of the magnetic field of a nerve axon and asking questions about magnetic effects arising from subtle features of the electrical anisotropy of cardiac tissue would provide the foundation for the current understanding of the mechanism of cardiac defibrillation. Central to these discoveries was the development of new instruments and computer modeling of how the signals were generated and should be interpreted. My current challenge, and a remarkable opportunity for nascent biological physicists and engineers, is to use measurement and modeling tools and well-designed actuators to understand and control phenomena of practical importance: for example, to explore systems biology and engineer cell lines and media using a thousand miniature automated bioreactors that will someday be driven by artificial intelligence software to operate as self-driving biological laboratories.