Biological Circuits

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. 

Featured Research

Non-equilibrium pattern formation in a living cell

XJ Xu ‘25

he/him

Physics (Wu Lab)

Headshot of XJ Xu (left) fluorescence microscopy image (right)

Faculty

  • Marcus Bosenberg

    Professor; Dermatology, Pathology, and Immunobiology
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Systems Biology
    Research Interests: Melanoma biology; soft tissue tumors
  • John Carlson

    Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
    • Biological Circuits
    • Systems Biology
    Research Interests: Molecular basis of olfaction, taste, and pheromone perception
  • Alicia Che

    Assistant Professor; Psychiatry
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    Research Interests: Structure and function of cortical networks: neuronal circuits; optical imaging
  • Hattie Chung

    Assistant Professor; Cardiovascular Medicine and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • Systems Biology
    Research 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 Engineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • +1 more
    Research 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 Physics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • Neuroscience
    • +1 more
    Research 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 Engineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research 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 Biology
    • Biological Circuits
    Research 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 Biology
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • +3 more
    Research Interests: The systems biology, biomechanics and molecular biophysics of early spinal column development
  • Farren Isaacs

    Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +2 more
    Research Interests: Synthetic Biology, Genome Engineering, Systems Biology, Bioengineering, Engineered biomaterials & RNAs
  • Anthony Koleske

    Professor; Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry
    • Biological Circuits
    • Neuroscience
    Research 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 Engineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • +2 more
    Research 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 Engineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    Research 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; Neuroscience
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • Neuroscience
    Research 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; Physics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • Neuroscience
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: Understanding how structure and function emerge in complex living systems, particularly the brain.
  • Nikhil Malvankar

    Associate Professor; Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +3 more
    Research 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 Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research 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 Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    Research Interests: Protein self-assembly; protein folding and dynamics; amyloid
  • Simon Mochrie

    Professor; Physics and Applied Physics
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • +2 more
    Research 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 Physics
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, active matter, biophysics, synthetic biology, cytoskeletal mechanics.
  • Amir Pahlavan

    Assistant Professor; Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    Research Interests: Bacterial chemotaxis and biofilm formation in complex environments using both experiments and modeling.
  • Richard Prum

    Professor; Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    Research Interests: Avian feather evolution; structural color; avian color vision; avian phylogenetics and behavioral evolution
  • Hesper Rego

    Associate Professor; Microbial Pathogenesis
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    Research Interests: Imaging (including building microscopes), single-cell level experiments, mycobacterial infections, drivers of heterogeneity
  • Edward Stites

    Associate Professor; Laboratory Medicine & Pathology
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +2 more
    Research Interests: mathematical modeling, informed machine learning, cancer biology/disease biology, systems biology, synthetic biology
  • Xiaolei Su

    Assistant Professor; Cell Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: Membranes, phase separation, and regulation of immune signaling; single molecule imaging and cell engineering
  • John Tsang

    Professor; Immunobiology and Biomedical Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +2 more
    Research 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 Biology
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: Single cell oscillations and travelling waves, membrane curvature, mitosis, cell size
  • Elsa Yan

    Professor; Chemistry
    • Biological Circuits
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    Research Interests: Biomolecular interactions at interfaces; signal transduction across biomembranes; molecular mechanism of vision
  • Jing Yan

    Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • +3 more
    Research 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