Physics SlideShow

CPLC Summer School at Illinois

The Center for the Physics of Living Cells (CPLC), an NSF Physics Frontier Center comprising faculty in the departments of physics, chemistry, electrical and computer engineering, and biochemistry, is currently holding its first ever CPLC Summer School from July 26-August 1 on the UIUC campus.

Participating Faculty include CPLC co-directors Taekjip Ha and Klaus Schulten, with Paul Selvin, Yann Chemla, Ido Golding, and Alek Aksimentiev all from the Department of Physics, as well as Zan Luthey-Schulten and Martin Gruebele from the Department of Chemistry. Their laboratories are using the latest single-molecule, live-cell experimental and computational biophysical tools to investigate biological problems such as mechanisms of protein motor translocation along DNA and the cytoskeleton, mechanics of DNA-protein interactions during replication and recombination, and dynamics of protein folding and gene expression.

The summer school, coordinated by Jaya Yodh, CPLC director of education and outreach, is designed primarily for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in chemical and life sciences, biophysics, physics, and engineering who are looking to expand their research skills into these technical areas. Nineteen students are currently attending the summer school including two undergraduates, twelve graduate students, and five post-doctoral fellows (21% come from international institutions and 26% come from universities in the Midwest).

The week-long program includes two days of "basic training" for all participating students with four components: 1) lectures by CPLC faculty, 2) tours of CPLC laboratories, 3) a CPLC poster session, and 4) introductory mini-courses on molecular biology, optics, and software taught by CPLC graduate students and postdocs. This will be followed by a three-day "advanced module"--also taught by CPLC graduate students and postdocs--offering intensive training in one of the following six topics based on CPLC faculty areas of expertise: 1) Single-molecule FRET: (Taekjip Ha lab); 2) Single-Molecule FIONA (Paul Selvin lab); 3) Single-molecule Force and Optical Trapping: (Yann Chemla lab); 4) Spatio-temporal Microscopy of Protein Dynamics in Living Cells (Martin Gruebele lab); 5) Single-Event Detection in Living Cells (Ido Golding lab); and 6) Computational Biophysics: Molecular Dynamics Software VMD and NAMD (Laboratories of Klaus Schulten, Zan Luthey-Schulten, and Alek Aksimentiev).

The apparatus shown here is an in vivo temperature-jump microscope, used by the Gruebele group to
detect protein folding, aggregation, and signaling with high spatiotemporal resolution in living cells.
The cell and data shown here are for folding and refolding kinetics of the enzyme phosphoglycerate kinase
in bone marrow cells.  Courtesy Martin Gruebele 

One of the unique aspects of the CPLC Summer School is that the Center's focus--physical quantification of processes in living cells--makes it possible to offer hands-on training on-site. A critical mass of experimentalists, computational physicists, and theorists in the Center also allows for training students in a diverse range of experimental and computational techniques. Finally, the summer school provides an excellent opportunity for the Center’s own graduate students and post-doctoral fellows--a total of twenty this year--to gain valuable teaching experience.

The CPLC Summer School was supported by the National Science Foundation, grant 0822613. The conclusions presented are those of the researchers and not necessarily of the National Science Foundation.

Contact: Jaya Yodh, CPLC director of education and outreach, 217/244-1155.