Parasitism, the intimate antagonistic liaison between two species, has always fascinated scientists from a variety of disciplines. Traditionally, parasitology was concerned mainly with organismic studies, while today’s parasitology focuses on medically-relevant cellular and molecular mechanisms, at ever-increasing depth. The priority programme “Physics of Parasitism” (PoP) defines a new frontier in this field, namely the physics of parasites interacting with their hosts.
For the first time, physicists and biologists jointly survey the forces acting in and around parasites. In this instance, even phylogenetically divergent biological systems are readily comparable, because PoP does not aim at deciphering molecular pathways, but rather measuring and modelling physical parameters. This is the unifying element within PoP.