Associate Professor Alexander Mietke has been awarded the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics’ Early Career Scientist Prize in Biological Physics 2024. The prize recognises his groundbreaking insights that harness active matter theory to reveal how physical forces shape living form – from cellular dynamics to the emergence of body asymmetry in developing embryos.
Associate Professor Mietke studies how broken symmetries, geometry, and mechanical constraints influence the dynamics of active matter and guide morphogenetic processes in developing organisms. Collaborating often closely with experimental groups, his theoretical work has helped showing that many key symmetry-breaking events in developing embryos arise from the interplay between active matter self-organisation and subtle external mechanical cues.
Most recently, Associate Professor Mietke’s theoretical analysis has helped explain why the collective mechanical properties of 2D crystals formed by thousands of hydrodynamically interacting starfish embryos resemble those of active ‘odd’ solids.