Biological Physics 
 Theory and Computation

Our group explores the basic physics underlying a variety of biological processes ranging in scale from protein function at the molecular level to the collective motility of cells and organisms.  We use theoretical methods from statistical mechanics, polymer physics and elasticity as well as simulation techniques including molecular dynamics, coarse grained Brownian dynamics, Monte Carlo simulations and agent based models . We also work in close collaboration with experimentalists and other theorists, many of who are part of our NSF funded Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines. Our research spans three broad areas:

   Cell Shape Regulation from Cytoskeletal Structure and Dynamics
Both bacterial and eukaryotic cells need to maintain control of their shape which affects function. How do cells exploit the intrinsic structure and dynamics of cytoskeletal filaments to measure, maintain and change shape ?
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Intracellular Transport
Material is continuously transported between organelles within our cells by the action of molecular motors dragging cargo on a network of protein filaments. How does the composition of the cargo, co-operation between motors and the topology of the  road network affect transport? What does this tell us about disease states where transport is disrupted?

Collective Motion
Collective motion is exploited at many scales ranging from flocks of birds to groups of migrating cells involved in development, wound healing or cancer. How does individual variability among the collective, as in clusters of malignant cancer cells, allow for novel physical phases, enhanced load sharing and transport?



 LATEST NEWS:

UC MRPI grant to establish UC Coronavirus Research Consortium [news]

Awarded seed grant from STC CEMB to study collective cell migration

AG elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (DBIO) [news]

Talk in the awesome  Biological Physics Physical Biology (BPPB) seminar series

Our chiral filament sensing and regulation work with K.C. Huang group appears in Nature Communications [news]

Niranjan passed his quals! Congrats Niranjan!

Niranjan wins the GSOP Fellowship from Graduate Division. Congrats Niranjan!

Bryan Maelfeyt defends his thesis! Congrats Dr. Maelfeyt!

Talk at Harvard University Applied Mathematics on frustration in migrating cell clusters (Nov 2018)

Katie's paper on frustration in migrating cell clusters published in Science Advances! [news story]

Review paper on the physics of Cell Cluster Migration published in Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology

Paper with  Al Mosleh and Santangelo on Growth of Form in thin elastic structures published in Soft Matter
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CCBM Supplementary grant awarded!

Paper with Xu group on viscosity effects on cargo run length on bioRxiv

Aspen Public Radio interview

Started as Chair of Physics Department (July 1 2018)

Aspen Center for Physics Colloquium and Telluride talk on disordered proteins (June/July 2018)

Invited talk at APS March Meeting 2018  on Intracellular Road Networks

EARLIER HIGHLIGHTS:

NSF Grant on "Modeling Transport in Complex Intracellular Environments" is funded!

Our Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) is funded by NSF for 5 years and $5 million! AG and Victor Munoz (BioE) will serve as co-directors. [UCM story] [Merced Sun Star story]

David Ando's paper on cytoskeletal network morphology regulating intracellular transport is on the cover of Biophysical Journal (Oct. 2015) [free to access paper]

David Ando starts as a postdoc at Berkeley Lab! Congrats and good luck David! (October 2015)

David Ando defends his thesis! (July 2015)

NSF grant on "Infant Vocalizations as Foraging" is funded (July 2015)

Aspen TV interview on "The Physics of Flocking and Swarming"

AG has been named a Scialog Fellow by the Research Corporation and Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation (July 2014)