Biology Interface: biophysics, biochemistry, bioinformatics

Corwin Lab: The Corwin lab models active and passive thermally driven systems at fluid interfaces. We agitate a container full of water to produce chaotic surface waves which replicate the tumultuous thermal motion of molecules in a gas, but on a centimeter scale rather than angstrom. We’ve shown that these waves have a temperature that is functionally identical that of a thermal gas. This offers us a unique opportunity to study statistical mechanics in a constitutive fashion, exploring directly the dynamics of interparticle interactions, phase transitions, polymer analogs, and many other systems.

Guenza Lab: Modeling of the dynamics of protein, DNA, and RNA. Langevin equations, atomistic and coarse-grained simulations. Predictions of experimental observables for nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation, fluorescence depolarization, and circular dichroism.

McMorran Lab: We are developing new electron microscopy techniques that can be used to obtain images of biomaterials with improved spatial resolution and contrast.

Parthasarathy Lab: The Parthasarathy Lab examines the physical properties of biomaterials, such as lipid membranes, and the self-organization of complex multicellular communities, such as populations of gut microbes.

Pluth Lab: The Pluth lab is developing new chemical tools for imaging and quantifying biological hydrogen sulfide.

Prell Lab: The Prell lab investigates the interface between biophysics and biochemistry by studying how biological membrane properties arise from chemical interactions and how these are exploited by or drive biochemical phenomena.

Taylor Lab: Electronic sensors and stimulators for in vivo and in vitro neural networks

Ursell Lab: We use tools from microscopy, mechanics, computational modeling, and statistical physics to understand how cells move and invade, how cells die, and how cells engage in collective behavior that benefits the group over the individual, in a variety of natural and medically relevant settings.