Physics of Living Systems | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Physics of Living Systems (PoLS) program is a discretionary grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number PD 14 7246) in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category under CFDA 47.049 (Mathematical and Physical Sciences). Its central aim is to drive research that sits squarely at the intersection of physics and biology, but with a clear tilt toward physics: PoLS wants projects that uncover the fundamental physical processes and principles that living systems use to function in complex, changing environments. In practice, that means proposals should be built around physics questions motivated by living systems, rather than biology studies that simply happen to use advanced physics instruments. The solicitation is explicit that projects using physics equipment mainly as a tool to address standard biological questions are considered very low priority.

PoLS is designed to encourage tight synergy between theory and experiment, emphasizing quantitative, testable ideas about how living systems are organized and how they operate. The program is interested in research that explains biological function through basic physical principles, while also pushing physics itself into new conceptual territory. In other words, NSF is looking for proposals where the biological context is not just an application area, but a source of new physics insights, frameworks, or generalizable laws. The program also welcomes ambitious directions, including work related to artificial life, fundamental questions about what constitutes life, and how life may have originated.

The scientific scope is intentionally broad and spans multiple scales of organization. At the single-cell and subcellular level, PoLS supports studies of physical mechanisms such as molecular architecture and intracellular dynamics, energy metabolism as a physical process, gene regulation viewed through quantitative physical modeling, and communication pathways within and between cells. At larger scales, the program is interested in collective behavior, the emergence and evolution of complexity, and the physics of living populations and interacting organisms. A recurring theme is a systems-style approach familiar from physics research on inanimate matter, applied to “animated, replicating systems” to produce phenomenological theories that can be confronted with experiments and data.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, NSF anticipated around 10 awards with an estimated total program funding level of $2,000,000, and it does not require cost sharing or matching. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open broadly to applicant types), subject to any additional eligibility clarifications provided in the full program materials. The program primarily funds individual investigators, but it explicitly welcomes collaborative submissions, especially those that combine physicists with biological researchers in a way that strengthens both the physical theory and the biological grounding.

PoLS also signals interest in broader impacts that connect fundamental work to potential societal benefits. Examples specifically called out include renewable energy, human health, and education, which can strengthen a proposal’s broader impacts case when they are authentically integrated with the core physics-of-living-systems research goals. The posted date for the opportunity was June 11, 2014, with an original/full proposal deadline of October 22, 2014, and the solicitation indicates the deadline recurs annually on the fourth Wednesday in October (noting that applicants should always verify current NSF deadlines and active solicitations). The archive date listed is November 23, 2024, and applicant support for electronic access issues is directed to NSF grants.gov support at grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov.

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