Noise and Competition in Gene Expression: The Biophysics of Cellular Inconveniences
| Date/Time: | Thursday, 15 Jan 2015 from 4:10 pm to 5:00 pm |
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| Location: | Physics 0003 |
| Phone: | 515-294-5441 |
| Channel: | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Abstract: Resources in the cell are limited and typically shared. This is especially acute in the process of transcription where the proteins involved often exist in similar copy number to their total number of DNA target sites. This shared demand for and scarcity of protein resources contributes to the difficulty inherent in quantitative predictions for transcription: the cellular environment is noisy and interconnected. In this talk I'll show how an approach combining rigorous theoretical models with precision measurements made possible by synthetic biology techniques provides a powerful framework for finding the biophysical rules controlling these cellular inconveniences and their influence on gene expression.
Bio: Rob Brewster is currently a postdoctoral scholar in Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Rob received his bachelors from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in physics and his PhD in physical chemistry from UCLA in 2007 studying granular dynamics with Alex Levine. Since receiving his PhD, Rob has become increasingly interested in physical biology, receiving a Fulbright fellowship to do theory work on organization in biological membranes with Sam Safran at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Recently, Rob has moved on from purely theoretical approaches and has worked since 2009 doing experiments on bacterial transcription in Rob Phillips' group at Caltech. This work has produced several publications blending his strong theoretical background with experiments designed to test these theoretical predictions that rely on a combination of modern molecular biology techniques to manipulate the bacteria and cutting edge microscopy techniques. The key outcomes of these studies center on insights into the transcription process, specifically, on how molecular resources are shared across the genome and on how transcriptional noise is controlled at the level of gene regulation. In the future, Rob is hoping to continue this approach to physical biology in his own lab emphasizing the interplay between exacting quantitative theory and careful experimental measurements to continue studies on how the noisy, interconnected cellular environment influences decision making in bacteria and in higher organisms.