Education at the Interface -- Experiences and Perspectives

UCSD has been one of the pioneering institutions in establishing training at the interface of the physical and life sciences. In the early nineties we created the La Jolla Interface in Sciences program when the idea of dual mentorship was first established. It has been a great success and dual training is now adopted by many institutions in the America and worldwide. This experience has helped us to establish the first NSF Physics Frontier Center in Biological Physics. I will discuss the training of physicists that are able to have an impact in both the life sciences and in the physics of complex systems. Physics has been having a major impact in the life sciences but the reverse is also true! Biological questions have driven major developments in modern physics.