Random First Order Theory concepts in Biology and Condensed Matter physics

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Random First Order Transition (RFOT) theory, originally developed for glass formation in condensed matter physics, can be applied to understand complex phenomena in biology and other disordered systems, revealing deep connections across disciplines.

Contribution

It demonstrates the broad applicability of RFOT theory to biological systems, electronic disordered systems, and phenomena like tumor heterogeneity, highlighting the role of metastable states and complex landscapes.

Findings

RFOT theory explains biological metastability and heterogeneity.

Connections between glass physics and electronic disordered systems are established.

Intratumor heterogeneity shows similarities to glassy behavior.

Abstract

The routine transformation of a liquid, as it is cooled rapidly, resulting in glass formation, is remarkably complex. A theoretical explanation of the dynamics associated with this process has remained one of the major unsolved problems in condensed matter physics. The Random First Order Transition (RFOT) theory, which was proposed over twenty five years ago, provides a theoretical basis for explaining much of the phenomena associated with glass forming materials. It links or relates multiple metastable states, slow or glassy dynamics, dynamic heterogeneity, and both a dynamical and an ideal glass transition. Remarkably, the major concepts in the RFOT theory can also be profitably used to understand many spectacular phenomena in biology and condensed matter physics, as we illustrate here. The presence of a large number of metastable states and the dynamics in such complex landscapes in biological systems from molecular to cellular scale and beyond leads to behavior, which is amenable to descriptions based on the RFOT theory. Somewhat surprisingly even intratumor heterogeneity arising from variations in cancer metastasis in different cells is hauntingly similar to glassy systems. There are also deep connections between glass physics and electronically disordered systems undergoing a metal-insulator transition, aging effects in which quantum effects play a role, and the physics of super glasses (a phase that is simultaneously a super fluid and a frozen amorphous structure). We argue that the common aspect in all these diverse phenomena is that multiple symmetry unrelated states governing both the equilibrium and dynamical behavior - a lynchpin in the RFOT theory - controls the behavior observed in these unrelated systems.