Theoretical studies of gene expression kinetics

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In a typical gene expression cycle, molecular signals enter the nucleus, they interact with the transcription factors and with the DNA, one or more genes are transcribed to RNA, the transcript is edited, and then it is exported to the cytoplasm where it is translated to protein. The time required for each of these steps is a random variable due to the intrinsic randomness of diffusive search and of reactive events. My research program seeks to understand these random events mechanistically, as well as their consequences for cellular function and for bioengineering. In very rough terms, we seek to reduce these complex stochastic (random) processes to their constituent parts, to understand the parts, and then to reintegrate them in order to say something about the statistics of the whole chain of events.