All eukaryotic cells rely on the active self-organization of protein filaments to form a responsive intracellular cytoskeleton. The necessity of motility and reaction to stimuli additionally requires pathways that quickly and reversibly change cytoskeletal organization. While thermally driven order-disorder...

The relationship between the mechanical properties of cells and their molecular architecture has been the focus of extensive research for decades. The cytoskeleton, an internal polymer network, in particular determines a cell’s mechanical strength and morphology. This cytoskeleton evolves during...

Subdiffusion and its causes in both in vivo and in vitro lipid membranes have become the focus of recent research. We report apparent subdiffusion, observed via single particle tracking (SPT), in a homogeneous system that only allows normal diffusion (a DMPC monolayer in the fluid state). The apparent...

There is a great amount of literature available indicating that membranes are inhomogeneous, complex fluids. For instance, observation of diffusion in cell membranes demonstrated confined motion of membrane constituents and even subdiffusion. In order to circumvent the small dimensions of cells leading...

Lipid membranes play a fundamental role in vital cellular functions such as signal transduction. Many of these processes rely on lateral diffusion within the membrane, generally a complex fluid containing ordered microdomains. However, little attention has been paid to the alterations in transport dynamics...

In recent decades the biological sciences have rapidly moved from being qualitative to being quantitative.  In this talk, we will report some recent work that applies concepts and tools from nonlinear science to address biological problems. We examine two examples: the cell cycle control networks of...