SRP (Groeiers): Applied physics and systems biology. Towards a cross-disciplinary complex systems center @ VUB

The Applied Physics research group (APHY), headed by Jan Danckaert (http://we.vub.ac.be/aphy/) and the MICR subdivision headed by Jeroen Raes (http://systemsbiology.vub.ac.be) are two young, medium-sized research groups of about 15 researchers each. In this project, the APHY and MICR research groups want to consolidate their respective core activities, and moreover join forces: bringing together the internationally recognised metagenomics and microbial ecosystems expertise of MICR with APHY's core competence of applying techniques from nonlinear and collective dynamics to different fields of physics and engineering, we aim at creating an cross-disciplinary centre in Systems Biology at the VUB. Hereby, if successful, we aspire to be at the forefront of dynamical microbial community modelling worldwide.