Director

Ivet Bahar’s major goal is two-fold: to elucidate the basic principles of biomolecular systems dynamics, machinery and evolution; and to design/develop modulators of function or potential drugs against complex diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders and cancer. Her lab develops physics-based models and machine learning methods to bridge molecular and cell/systems behavior. She is Louis and Beatrice Laufer Endowed Chair of Physical & Quantitative Biology, and Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Associate Director

Carlos Simmerling develops new algorithms and energy functions using state-of-the-art computers for accurate and efficient simulation of large systems of biomolecules. He also applies these methods to systems where conformational dynamics are important for function, such as slow ligand binding and DNA recognition and repair. Carlos is Marsha Laufer Endowed Professor of Physical and Quantitative Biology, and Professor of Chemistry at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Founding Director

Ken A. Dill is interested in the physics of how proteins fold; the microscopic origins of the unusual physical properties of water; the foundations and applications of variational entropy-based principles in statistical physics; and how the laws of physics constrain and enable the biological properties and evolution of cells. Ken is the Laufer Family Endowed Chair of Physical and Quantitative Biology, and Distinguished Professor of Physics, Chemistry and Applied Math at Stony Brook. He is the founding director (2010-2022) of the Laufer Center. (Video, Citations)

Gábor Balázsi designs synthetic gene circuits to precisely control gene expression in microbes and mammalian cells, and to study emergent cell population-level behaviors such as diversification, formation of multicellular structures, survival during drug treatment or other stressful conditions, and evolution. We develop mathematical models to identify key mechanisms that connect gene networks to their population-level effects, hoping to understand control across scales in biology. Gábor is Henry Laufer Endowed Professor of Physical and Quantitative Biology, and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Eugene Serebryany is interested in the biophysics of protein misfolding in vivo and mechanisms of misfolding-associated diseases, discovery and pharmacological targeting of physiologically relevant non-native protein conformations, and protein engineering in currently inaccessible environments. To enable these lines of research, he develops new experimental methods at the interface of molecular biophysics and chemical biology and closely collaborates with computational biophysicists for computational-experimental integration. Eugene is an Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Lina Carlini is interested in organization at the subcellular level, from individual molecules to organelles. Her research program focuses on the physical and molecular cross-talk between subcellular components like mitochondria and the cell division machinery. This is achieved by combining quantitative fluorescence imaging with optical, chemical, and genetic perturbations in several model systems. She is a Laufer Family Endowed Professor of Physical and Quantitative Biology, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. (Citations)

Eric Brouzes is interested in understanding cellular heterogeneity and its role in healthy and diseased tissues, such as cancer. To achieve this goal, his lab focuses on developing novel microfluidic approaches to perform quantitative, functional and genomic measurements at single-cell resolution. Those platforms rely both on droplet and single-phase microfluidic technologies to enable the manipulation and processing of single-cells at low and high-throughput. Eric is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Dr. Davuluri is a leader in bioinformatics and data science research. His lab currently focuses on developing machine learning algorithms and informatics solutions for problems in isoform-level gene regulation and precision-medicine. The overarching goal of the lab is to translate data from high dimensional (-omic) platforms (e.g., NextGen sequencing) to derive experimentally interpretable and testable discovery models towards genomics-based decision support systems. Ramana is a Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Bruce Futcher researches the logic and control of cell growth and cell division circuitry, a problem that is related to the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells. In collaboration with Eckard Wimmer, Steffen Mueller and Steve Skiena, he is developing methods for creating weak synthetic viruses, which may be useful in therapies as well as biological research. Bruce is a Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Stony Brook. (Citations)

David Green is studying signaling in the G-protein pathway, to understand the specificity of protein-protein interactions; and how the HIV-1 virus recognizes its target cells, to learn how glycosylation modulates protein interactions. David is an Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Peter Koo studies the functional impact of genomic mutations using data-driven AI solutions. We are broadly interested in a gene regulation and protein (dys)function. We develop methods to interpret high-performing deep learning models to distill knowledge from big, noisy biological sequence data. Our goal is to elucidate biological mechanisms that underlie sequence-function relationships, with a broader aim of advancing precision medicine for complex diseases, including cancer. Peter is an Assistant Professor at the Simons Center for Quantitative Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (Citations)

Dan Raleigh studies protein folding, protein structure and the mechanism of amyloid formation to understand how proteins fold to their final 3D structure and to understand why the folded conformation is stable. The work on amyloid formation is directed towards understanding the physical basis for the pathological aggregation of polypeptides in certain diseases. These projects involve a wide range of techniques, including but not limited to: high resolution multidimensional NMR, protein design, stop flow methods, peptide synthesis and protein chemistry. Dan is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Joshua Rest focuses on evolutionary genomics, investigating the mechanisms behind changes in gene expression, protein structure, and genome architecture, and their impact on fitness and phenotypic traits in organisms including yeast, mammals, plants, protists, and viruses. The Rest lab uses computational and experimental techniques to study horizontal gene transfer, gene network evolution, and viral-host genome evolution. We seek to understand how these processes drive biological diversity and function, connecting molecular changes to evolutionary patterns and their biological consequences. Joshua is an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook. (Click here for my video, Citations)

Robert Rizzo. For efficient and effective drug design, the Rizzo group develops and applies computational algorithms and protocols in atomic-level modeling of how drugs bind to proteins. Rob is a Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Jessica Seeliger studies cell envelope processes in pathogenic mycobacteria, especially processes that contribute to the formation and remodelling of the lipid membranes. Related topics include the discovery and characterization of small molecules that modulate activity in these pathways and the relationships between lipid membrane biogenesis, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic resistance. Jessica is Associate Professor of Pharmacological Sciences at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Markus Seeliger works to understand the molecular mechanisms of signaling proteins, and how small molecule ligands and drugs can modulate their activity. Markus is a Professor of Pharmacological Sciences at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook. (Click here to watch my video, Citations)

Steve Skiena designs combinatorial algorithms for biology, particularly for analyzing the sequences and assembly of biological molecules and for designing synthetic genes. Steve is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Computer Science and Director of Institute for AI-Driven Discovery and Innovation at Stony Brook. (Click here to watch my video, Citations)

Helmut Strey is interested in the dynamics of biomacromolecules (DNA, proteins, polysaccharides) and their interaction. His lab is developing biotechnologies using micro- and nanofabrication to create novel methods to answer questions in quantitative biology and medicine. Specifically, he is developing microfluidics for single-cell genomics and is designing nanofluidic devices to measure single-molecule interaction using fluorescence techniques. Helmut is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Jin Wang studies the physics and chemistry of biomolecules and networks with a focus on the mechanisms of protein folding, biomolecular recognition and biological networks. He uses modern statistical mechanics, simulations, and empirical information from databases to study the detailed processes involved. Jin is a Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Physics at Stony Brook. (Citations)

Flaminia Talos investigates the cellular origins and the underlying mechanisms of intratumor heterogeneity and clonal diversification in cancer using in vivo analyses of genetically engineered mouse models, organoid culture systems and multi-omics systems biology approaches. Current projects in Talos laboratory are focused on clonal dynamics in normal prostate homeostasis and aging, identification of novel biomarkers/mechanisms of drug resistance, and immunomodulatory interventions on the tumor clonal landscape. Flaminia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pathology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook.

In Leemor Joshua-Tor’s lab, researchers study the molecular basis of nucleic acid regulatory processes using the tools of structural biology and biochemistry. Joshua-Tor and her team offered critical insight when they solved the crystal structure of the Argonaute protein and identified it as the long-sought Slicer. This year, members of the Joshua-Tor lab explored the function of a very similar protein, called Argonaute 1, that has no slicing ability, even though it is almost identical in structure to the slicing hAgo2. Using biochemical methods and mutational analysis, they idenified key parts of the protein that are required for slicing activity. The lab also studies the generation of PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), which protect the genome of germ cells. With colleagues in the Hannon lab, Joshua-Tor’s team also determined the structure and function of Zucchini, a key nuclease in the initial generation of piRNAs in fruit flies.