At 2:00 p.m. on August 30, 2023, Antti Niemi, tenured professor of Nordic Center for Theoretical Physics and adjunct professor of Beijing Institute of Technology, gave an academic report entitled "Towards the physical understanding of molecular motors" for our faculty and students in Science Building B2-206.

The investigation of both biological and synthetic molecular machines is at the frontline of research in molecular biology and chemistry. But the understanding of the physical principles that operate these machines that include proteins that sustain all life processes in living cells, remains a challenging task that has the potential to improve various aspects of human life, even explaining life itself. Here we describe some theoretical ideas how and why autonomous rotating biomolecular machines can operate so effectively, how they function without any apparent external control by harvesting resources directly from their environment.