Cell adaptation

How do the behaviors of cells and populations arise from their underlying molecules, biochemical pathways, and cycles? How are homeostatic and evolutionary adaptations encoded?

We focus on principles of evolution crossing scales from molecular, to 4D genome, to intermediate between the small (molecules) and the large (cells); on establishing principled mechanisms of fitness; on how gene expressions as well as epigenetics are regulated; and on how biological systems live with noise and variation -- either to their advantage, or by mitigating it; or changing under it, as cancer cells do in the face of hundreds of mutations, or host cells do when infected -- how decisions are made about action, fueled by energy; how cells and cell populations determine their sizes and growth rates; and how cells age, causing changes in metabolism, hormone (e.g. insulin) production, immunity, and sleep.