Disorder as a Novel Determinant of Photosynthetic Structure and Function: an Experimental Study

Physical systems left to themselves tend towards increased disorder (entropy). Biological systems are no exception, but they generate ordered structures by increasing entropy overall. This experimental project addresses fundamental questions at the interface between physics and biology, specifically to elucidate the novel relation between entropy/entropy production and the structure/function of chloroplasts in photosynthesis. It aims to establish that chloroplasts typify a living system selected by evolution (1) on non-equilibrium thermodynamic grounds, and (2) for the beneficial outcomes of entropy-generated local order. This order-from-disorder paradigm connects biology to physics, unifying biological evolution and thermodynamics.