Areas of expertise:
Cells adopt a range of shapes and can build an amazing variety of structures from proteins. We are interested in the biophysical mechanisms by which cells engineer these large-scale structures--in other words, the molecular basis of morphology. The subject of our current research is the microtubule cytoskeleton. We investigate the proteins that control the microtubule cytoskeleton, namely microtubule polymerases, motor proteins, and other microtubule-associated proteins. The lab uses the techniques of single-molecule biophysics, which shed light on the fundamental workings of these important enzymes.