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. Our research spans three broad areas:
Biopolymer Structure and Dynamics
How do intrinsic disorder, chirality and surface interactions affect biopolymer structure and function?
Intracellular Transport
How do teams of molecular motors accomplish transport on complex filamentous networks within the cell?
Collective Motion
How do flocks/swarms/cell-clusters deal with individual variability and environmental disorder?
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LATEST NEWS: Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (DBIO) 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 Niranjan passed his quals! 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 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 Talk at Georgetown University on Geometric incompatibility and function in biopolymers NSF CREST Center Directors meeting in Washington (Feb 2018) Katie Copenhagen is off to a postdoc at Princeton University with Shaevitz group! Good luck, Katie! Paper on Plasmon actuated nano-assembled microshells with Ghosh group appears in Scientific Reports. University of Oregon, Physics Colloquium on Disordered Proteins Katie Copenhagen defends her thesis! Congrats Dr. Copenhagen! (August 2017) 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) |
