in honour of Jacques Prost’s outstanding contributions to the Physics/Biology interface

The workshop will cover the fields of active & living matter and their applications to
fundamental problems in biology. It will outline a set of common tools and concepts to
understand collective flows and biological materials - including molecular motors and the cytoskeleton, protein-membrane interactions, dynamics of living tissues in cancer and development.

We are grateful to the WE-Heraeus Foundation (see sponsor page) for covering the costs of accommodation - board and lodging - for all participants - there will be no registration fees. 

Application are open ! Click on Apply to conference, login, and prepare a short abstract. Deadline January 2nd 2026.

Acceptance notification by early/mid-January 2026. 

A limited number of applicants will be selected (70 participants max in Les Houches Seminar room).

We have not fully finalized the program but it should roughly be in that order: 

🧑‍🏫 Monday, March 9 — Active matter concepts in living materials
Lecturer: D. Nelson
Masaki Sano · coffee · Kinneret Keren · Aurélien Roux · Rong Li · lunch · free afternoon · Pascal Silberzan · Ewa Paluch · break  · Joseph Käs · Benoit Ladoux 

🧬 Tuesday, March 10 — Active matter concepts in living materials
Lecturer: S. Ramaswamy
Ananyo Maitra · coffee · Raphael Voituriez · Madan Rao · Ramin Golestanian · lunch · Poster Session

💧 Wednesday, March 11 — Osmotic / ionic / hydraulic control in living matter
Lecturer: F. Jülicher
Erwin Frey · coffee · Thuan Beng Saw · L. Mahadevan · Charlie Duclut · lunch · free

🌱 Thursday, March 12 — Biology inspiring new emerging active matter concepts
Lecturer: M. Gardel
Rita Mateus · coffee · Guillaume Salbreux · S. Bershadsky · Françoise Brochard-Wyart · lunch · Charlotte Aumeier · Iva Tolic · break · Olivia Du Roure · G.V. Shivashankar

⚡ Friday, March 13 — Stochastic thermodynamics and thermodynamics of 
information
Lecturer: L. Peliti
Juan Parrondo · coffee · Christoph Schmidt · Rhoda Hawkins · Jean-François Joanny · lunch

We'll also have (see Planning for details)

 Ski breaks

 Long poster session

Les Houches is a village located in Chamonix valley, in the French Alps. Established in 1951, the Physics School is situated at 1150 m above sea level in natural surroundings, with breathtaking views on the Mont-Blanc mountain range. Les Houches Physics School is UMS 2002 run by Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA). 

The 5 School Partners are 
- UGA, 
- the Institut National Polytechnique (Grenoble-INP), 
- the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS),
- the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), and 
- the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon).

Ecole de Physique des Houches: 149 Chemin de la Côte, F-74310 Les Houches, France https://houches-school-physics.com

The organizing team of J'ACTIVE WE-HERAEUS Workshop, Les Houches 2026 

Patricia Bassereau, 
Giovanni Cappello, 
Frank Julicher, 
Pascal Martin, 
Jean-François Rupprecht, 
Virgile Viasnoff

Contact email : jactive-26 (at) sciencesconf.org