<b>QUANTITATIVE BIOLOGY SEMINAR</b><br>A Physical View of Gene Regulation

Genes are much more than nodes in a network. They are physical objects, whose state is under cellular and developmental control. This physicality makes itself manifest in the degree of stochasticity observed in mRNA and protein levels, as well as the requirement for the local genomic vicinity of the gene to be physically mobile to recruit transcriptional machinery. To this end, I will present ongoing experimental, data-analysis, and modeling work conducted in close collaborations with the Carthew (Northwestern) and Gregor (Princeton) labs. Relying on a secure understanding of the biophysics of gene regulation in the early Drosophila embryo and larval wing, we hope to understand a little more about the logic of how gene regulation is controlled over space and time in developing organisms.