Philip Bittihn

I am a physicist fascinated by how complexity and collective behavior emerge in living systems — from the regulatory dynamics in single cells to coordination in growing tissues, tumors and bacterial colonies through signaling and mechanics. My work combines mathematical modeling, analytical theory, and large-scale simulations to uncover the physical principles underlying these phenomena, which is often directly relevant for biological experiments, biotechnology and medicine.

My path has taken me from the nonlinear waves of the heart, to bacterial synthetic biology as a postdoc at UC San Diego, to my current work on the statistical physics of proliferating multicellular systems. As different as these systems appear, they share a common thread: In each, simple local interactions give rise to organized collective behavior, pattern formation, and emergent dynamics far richer than the sum of their parts. Biological systems are particularly fascinating due the interplay between physical interactions (between cells and with the environment) and cellular regulation and adaptation. More often than once it turns out that evolution has taught biological systems to exploit sophisticated physical mechanisms to achieve coordinated behavior across many units. Uncovering the general principles behind this emergence — the physics that living, active matter shares across scales — is what ties my work together. Alongside the science, I have a strong commitment to open science and greatly enjoy mentoring and teaching.