Chemical Engineering Seminar

The "hardware" of living cells – the material components that underlie their function – consists primarily of soft matter embedded in a complex, active environment.  This talk will focus on the physical properties of different cellular elements, from polymers (DNA), to elastic shells (cell walls), to flowing fluids (cytoplasm), within the unique intracellular context.  On the molecular scale, the elastic properties of DNA as a "worm-like" chain are harnessed for packaging the genome into highly condensed yet accessible structures.  At the cellular level, large-scale forces arising from growth and deformation contribute to the rapid division of bacterial cells and to the transport of intracellular components inside a flowing cytoplasm.  Using multi-scale models grounded in statistical physics and continuum mechanics, we will explore the molecular origins and biological consequences of collective physical phenomena in the intracellular world.