How do cells make decisions? Researchers studying cell signaling, sensing, and computing investigate the cellular components that detect, interpret, and respond to the diverse and complicated network of biological signals. They also investigate how these components work together to give rise to nuanced, specific cellular responses to an external stimulus. Labs focused on cell fate ask how signaling pathways are integrated to drive a stem cell (or other multipotent cell type) toward a specific path of differentiation, and if and how terminal differentiation can be reversed. Investigators studying pattern formation and synchronization interrogate the role of pattern formation in propagation of a cellular signal both intra- and intercellularly and ask how groups of cells can synchronize their response to a specific signal.
Biological Circuits
Featured Research
Non-equilibrium pattern formation in a living cell
XJ Xu ‘25
he/him
Physics (Wu Lab)
Faculty
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Marcus Bosenberg
Professor; Dermatology, Pathology, and ImmunobiologyResearch Interests: Melanoma biology; soft tissue tumors -
John Carlson
Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: Molecular basis of olfaction, taste, and pheromone perception -
Alicia Che
Assistant Professor; PsychiatryResearch Interests: Structure and function of cortical networks: neuronal circuits; optical imaging -
Hattie Chung
Assistant Professor; Cardiovascular Medicine and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: We study the molecular basis of cellular heterogeneity and tissue organization in health and disease through the lens of systems biology by pioneering novel computational and experimental tools, with applications to cardiovascular disease and ovarian aging. -
Purushottam Dixit
Assistant Professor; Biomedical EngineeringResearch Interests: Build machine learning methds that are rooted in statistical physics to analyze high quality high dimensional “omics” data from biological systems -
Thierry Emonet
Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology and PhysicsResearch Interests: We combine theory and experiments to understand the computations organisms perform to navigate chemical environments. Bacteria: we analyze information processing in individual cells, the molecular basis of individuality, and how biological diversity benefits populations. Fruit flies: we examine how insects perform goal oriented olfactory navigation, and how they adapt decision-making strategies in real time as odor signal statistics and environmental conditions change -
Rong Fan
Professor; Biomedical EngineeringResearch Interests: Combining single-cell analysis technology and systems biology to study cell-cell communication and cellular heterogeneity in human cancers and the immune system -
Josh Gendron
Associate Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: How protein degradation controls the circadian clock in plants. Plant biology, circadian clock, light sensing, protein degradation, abiotic plant interactions, biological timing mechanisms, plant development. -
Scott Holley
Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: The systems biology, biomechanics and molecular biophysics of early spinal column development -
Farren Isaacs
Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: Synthetic Biology, Genome Engineering, Systems Biology, Bioengineering, Engineered biomaterials & RNAs -
Anthony Koleske
Professor; Molecular Biophysics & BiochemistryResearch Interests: Cellular shape and motility; biochemical dissection of signaling pathways; regulation of normal and cancer cell migration; and formation, function and stability of neural connections -
Aaron Kuan
Assistant Professor; Neuroscience and Biomedical EngineeringResearch Interests: Electron microscopy and X-ray imaging techniques to enable 3D imaging of neuronal circuits combined with behavior and functional imaging to reveal how circuit connectivity underlies brain activity and cognition. -
Andre Levchenko
Professor; Biomedical EngineeringResearch Interests: Systems Biology; Signal Transduction and Cell-Cell Communication; Cell Decision Making; Microfluidics and Micro- and Nano-fabrication; Stem Cell Engineering -
Liang Liang
Assistant Professor; NeuroscienceResearch Interests: Synaptic and neural circuit mechanisms underlying visual information processing; combining recording of neural activity in awake behaving animals, image processing, and computational modeling -
Christopher Lynn
Assistant Professor; PhysicsResearch Interests: Understanding how structure and function emerge in complex living systems, particularly the brain. -
Nikhil Malvankar
Associate Professor; Molecular Biophysics & BiochemistryResearch Interests: We are developing electronic Imaging & Control of Microbial Functions, by studying how environmentally and clinically important microbes build & use hair-like “nanowires” to export electrons outside their cell body, during respiration, communication, and pathogenesis and by tuning nanowire conductivity using light, pressure, temperature, electromagnetic fields, and non-natural ‘click’ chemistry. -
Kirstin Meyer
Assistant Professor; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: We seek to understand molecular mechanisms of emergent gene regulatory behavior, with a focus on temporal information transmission, mechanosensing, and chromatin biophysics. -
Andrew Miranker
Professor; Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and Chemical & Environmental EngineeringResearch Interests: Protein self-assembly; protein folding and dynamics; amyloid -
Simon Mochrie
Professor; Physics and Applied PhysicsResearch Interests: Quantitative microscopy and image analysis. Chromatin organization and dynamics. Nuclear envelope physics. Phase transitions of soft matter -
Michael Murrell
Associate Professor; Biomedical Engineering and PhysicsResearch Interests: Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, active matter, biophysics, synthetic biology, cytoskeletal mechanics. -
Amir Pahlavan
Assistant Professor; Mechanical Engineering & Materials ScienceResearch Interests: Bacterial chemotaxis and biofilm formation in complex environments using both experiments and modeling. -
Richard Prum
Professor; Ecology & Evolutionary BiologyResearch Interests: Avian feather evolution; structural color; avian color vision; avian phylogenetics and behavioral evolution -
Hesper Rego
Associate Professor; Microbial PathogenesisResearch Interests: Imaging (including building microscopes), single-cell level experiments, mycobacterial infections, drivers of heterogeneity -
Edward Stites
Associate Professor; Laboratory Medicine & PathologyResearch Interests: mathematical modeling, informed machine learning, cancer biology/disease biology, systems biology, synthetic biology -
Xiaolei Su
Assistant Professor; Cell BiologyResearch Interests: Membranes, phase separation, and regulation of immune signaling; single molecule imaging and cell engineering -
John Tsang
Professor; Immunobiology and Biomedical EngineeringResearch Interests: Systems and quantitative immunology; human immunology; single cell biology; predicting and modeling immune responses; synthetic immunology: predictive engineering of immune cell trafficking and sensing; immune homeostasis maintenance and set point establishment mechanisms; integrating dynamical modeling and machine learning to understand emergent immune system behavior across temporal and spatial scales. -
Min Wu
Associate Professor; Cell BiologyResearch Interests: Single cell oscillations and travelling waves, membrane curvature, mitosis, cell size -
Elsa Yan
Professor; ChemistryResearch Interests: Biomolecular interactions at interfaces; signal transduction across biomembranes; molecular mechanism of vision -
Jing Yan
Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental BiologyResearch Interests: Imaging and modeling the developmental process of bacterial communities, characterizing and understanding the soft matter properties of bacterial biofilms, designing new bioinspired materials and surfaces