Ned Wingreen
Princeton University, NJ·Biophysics
Groups can behave in ways that no single member does on its own. This project studies such emergent collective behavior at two scales in living systems: communities of bacteria, and droplet-like compartments that form inside cells.
- Fields
Biophysics
Microbiology & Immunology
Physics
- Topics
quorum sensing
autoinducers
bacterial communication
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Determine how flow, changes over time and biofilm spatial structure shape the strategies bacteria use to gather and act on quorum-sensing information carried by autoinducer signal molecules.
- Investigate how the presence of other species, including host organisms and bacteriophages, influences bacterial quorum-sensing communication.
- Identify what controls the number, size, location and makeup of biomolecular condensates, using the phase-separated pyrenoid of the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a model.
- Define how the pyrenoid condensate physically interacts with other cell structures, including its network of membrane tubules.
More about the research
In both cases, the work seeks the general biophysical rules behind the group behavior, using model systems that are easy to manipulate.
Why it matters
This is basic research into how collective behavior emerges in groups of cells and in groups of molecules. Because quorum sensing occurs throughout the bacterial world and condensates appear in many cell processes, the general principles it uncovers could inform understanding of microbial communities across species and environments, and of how cells organize processes such as metabolism, signaling and stress responses.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Galia Debelouchina
University of California-San Diego, CA·Biophysics
Determine how heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1), a protein family central to gene silencing, interacts with itself, with chromatin and with partner proteins to set the material properties of heterochromatin compartments.
Sergey Kryazhimskiy
University of California-San Diego, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Develop mathematical theory for how the biochemical architecture of cells, starting with complex metabolic networks, constrains the shape of fitness landscapes and how mutations move organisms across them.
William Childers
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test how copper and oxidative stress drive BR-bodies from liquid to solid through cysteine cross-links in RNase E, and whether this protects PNPase and aconitase, using live-cell experiments, test-tube assays and a redox-sensitive fluorescent biosensor.
The school
Princeton University: 26 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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