  Life is characterized by a myriad of complex dynamic processes allowing
organisms to grow, reproduce, and evolve. Physical approaches for describing
systems out of thermodynamic equilibrium have been increasingly applied to
living systems, which often exhibit phenomena unknown from those traditionally
studied in physics. Spectacular advances in experimentation during the last
decade or two, for example, in microscopy, single cell dynamics, in the
reconstruction of sub- and multicellular systems outside of living organisms,
or in high throughput data acquisition have yielded an unprecedented wealth of
data about cell dynamics, genetic regulation, and organismal development. These
data have motivated the development and refinement of concepts and tools to
dissect the physical mechanisms underlying biological processes. Notably, the
landscape and flux theory as well as active hydrodynamic gel theory have proven
very useful in this endeavour. Together with concepts and tools developed in
other areas of nonequilibrium physics, significant progresses have been made in
unraveling the principles underlying efficient energy transport in
photosynthesis, cellular regulatory networks, cellular movements and
organization, embryonic development and cancer, neural network dynamics,
population dynamics and ecology, as well as ageing, immune responses and
evolution. Here, we review recent advances in nonequilibrium physics and survey
their application to biological systems. We expect many of these results to be
important cornerstones as the field continues to build our understanding of
life.
