Featured Faculty
Professor Ganhui Lan
Dr. Lan employs methods in physics, mathematics and chemistry to study biological regulation at cellular and sub-cellular scales.
Regulation of Bacterial Cell Division: Like all other living organisms, bacterial cells constantly reproduce themselves via division. This process is crucial, complex and is subject to precise regulation. It typically involves a mechanochemical machinery to generate the force, and multiple regulatory systems to supervise the operation of this dedicated mechanochemical machine. We use the “simple” bacterium, E. coli, as our model system to study how the dynamical dividing process is regulated. In particular, a comprehensive biophysical model has been developed to quantify the MinCDE regulatory cycling. With all the physical and biochemical ingredients considered, we are able to obtain the spatiotemporal details of the entire cycling process and our preliminary data indicate that the dissipation of the system is not stationary and there is a nontrivial relation between the thermodynamic input and the biological output. The developed model can further serve as a theoretical framework for investigating other more complicated dynamic reaction networks.