Irwin Oppenheim Award (2022): Physical limits to biological sensing

Reliable sensing is crucial for cell survival, and many cellular sensors have evolved to be as precise as physically possible. Understanding these precision limits can therefore give important insights into the mechanisms and capabilities of cell sensing. First pioneered half a century ago in the context of bacterial chemotaxis, this way of viewing sensory biology has expanded to include concentration sensing, gradient sensing, mechanosensing, thermosensing, multiplexing, time-telling, and more. I will discuss this history and describe some of our own work deriving and testing new physical bounds to sensory precision, including collective sensing by groups of cells and self-guided flow sensing by cancer cells. This field reveals the fascinating physics that constrains cell behavior and suggests that cells operate at the edge of these physical bounds.