Professors Ian Wong and Jay Tang were invited speakers at a workshop on Jamming in Biological Systems from August 6-17, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences - Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, organized by Fangfu Ye (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Corey O'Hern (Yale University).

Leading professors from all over the world including MIT, Northwestern University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, University of Cambridge, Yale University, and others presented their latest research, covering a wide range of interdisciplinary fields across biology and physics. Major scientific questions regarding dense packing and jamming in biological systems were discussed across multiple length scales - proteins, cells, and tissues. Focus topics included dense packing in protein cores, computational modeling of tissues and tumors, wound healing, epithelial-mesenchymal transitions, cell locomotion and spreading, swarming bacteria, and biological self-assembly processes. An improved understanding of these topics could advance the fundamental understanding of non-equilibrium biological processes in a physical context, with potential applications in human development and disease.