Jacques Prost

Biography:
Dr. Jacques Prost is the Scientific Advisor, Mechanobiology Institute National University of Singapore, Emeritus CNRS Research Director and Distinguished professor of Curie Institute, Paris. He developed a research activity on Soft Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics with a strong emphasis on Liquid Crystals in the first years. Subsequently he has been interested in the physics-biology interface, in particular the description of molecular motors, hearing, cell and tissue dynamics for which he introduced the concept of "active membranes" and active gels and recently the notion of electromecano-biology. He was successively at the origin of the Bordeaux Liquid Crystal Group, of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physical Chemistry at ESPCI (Paris) and of the Physical Chemistry Laboratory at the Curie Institute (Paris).

After being the successor of Nobel Prize winner P.G. de Gennes as the head of ESPCI, he keeps his research activity in the Curie Institute as an emeritus member of CNRS, and simultaneously in the Mechanobiology Institute of the National University Singapore as scientific advisor. He is author and co-author of more than 250 publications on soft condensed matter, statistical physics and biophysics and contributed to a few books among which the new edition of "The Physics of Liquid Crystals" coauthored with P.G. de Gennes.

He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and European Academy of Sciences, received Beverly and Raymond Sackler Prize of Biophysics, Physik-Preis Dresden and Onsager Prize from American Physical Society. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from Bordeaux University (Nobel prize winner P.G. de Gennes, jury president).

Title of the communication:
Examples of the Relevance of Liquid Crystal Physics in Biology