🔬 Dynamics of Living Systems

Wolfgang Losert

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Project type: Computation and Experiments

This TREND project will focus on measurements or simulations to explore how cells and cell groups interact with their physical environment. Biochemical signals are well known to guide cell behaviors - indeed all drug development focuses on modulating specific biochemical signals. The Losert biodynamics lab has discovered that the primary sensors of the physical environment of cells (in particular of electric fields and texture) are not single proteins but intracellular collective actions of protein groups forming, e.g., polymerization waves. The project will focus on studying how physical signals can control changes in the collective behavior of cell groups.

Losert lab uses artificial intelligence tools to analyze these collective dynamics and perturbs the group's activity with optogenetics. Depending on their background, a TREND participant's project could involve analyzing the collective motion of cell groups, with emphasis on modeling or microscopy experiments.

Skills gained include image analysis (via machine learning), multiparametric description extraction from 3D and 4D datasets, cell handling, advanced microscopy, and PYTHON.

Examples of previous projects include:

  • Characterizing cell motion on complex surfaces
  • Developing a laser-based optical system to steer cells

Professor Losert has mentored numerous undergraduates, including over a dozen students through the TREND program.

Alumni/Previous Projects

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