Biophysics Seminars

The CPBF Seminar Series brings distinguished scientists to Princeton's campus to share recent research studying the  phenomena of life. Topics  range from single molecules to collective behavior in large populations, and span the intersection of physics and the life sciences.  The seminar is organized by a committee of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff. Current committee members are:

  • Shengkai Li, CPBF Fellow
  • Christopher Lynn, CPBF Fellow
  • Rahul Munshi,  CPBF Fellow
  • Beatrice Ramm, CPBF Fellow
  • Maryam Kohram, CPBF Fellow
  • Trevor K. GrandPre, CPBF Fellow
  • Sophie Dvali, Grad Student
  • Kevin Keomanee-Dizon, CPBF Fellow
  • Junang Li, CPBF Fellow
  • LaNell Williams, CPBF Fellow 
  • Ahmed Al Harraq, CPBF Fellow 
  • Abir George, Grad Student 
  • Andrew Leifer, Assistant Professor
  • Svitlana Rogers, CPBF Coordinator

Please contact Svitlana Rogers at [email protected] to suggest speakers or to express interest in joining the committee.

Quan Wen: Organizing Motor Behaviors Across Timescales
Tue, Mar 19, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm

Animal behaviors are complex and hierarchical spatiotemporal patterns. In the popular model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, behavioral sequences on a slower timescale emerge from ordered and flexible transitions between different motor states, such as forward movement, reversal, and turn. On a faster timescale, intricate head…

Mathieu Louis: Neural computations directing olfactory navigation in the Drosophila larva
Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm

Behavioral strategies employed for chemotaxis have been studied across phyla, but the neural computations underlying navigational decisions remain elusive. By combining electrophysiology, quantitative behavioral analysis and computational modeling, we explore how olfactory signals experienced during free motion are processed by the olfactory…

Jonas Cremer: Causes and consequences of bacterial growth - from protein synthesis to the human gut microbiota
Mon, Apr 1, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm

Growth is central to life, shaping physiology, ecology, and evolution. In this talk, I discuss our efforts to elucidate the causes and consequences of bacterial growth across scales. Starting from resource allocation models and the molecular and energetic demands of protein synthesis, I first introduce how bacterial cells adjust their…

Allyson Sgro:TBA
Mon, Apr 8, 2024, 12:00 pm1:30 pm
Canceled. To be re-scheduled: Jasmine Nirody: TBA
Mon, Apr 15, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm
Patrick Secor: Filamentous bacteriophages: Master manipulators of bacterial virulence potential
Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 12:00 pm1:30 pm

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen. Most P. aeruginosa isolates are infected by a filamentous virus (phage) called Pf. At sites of infection, filamentous Pf virions accumulate where they increase mucus viscosity, promote bacterial colonization, and directly stimulate innate anti-viral immune…

Amy Shyer: TBA
Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm
Michael Hinczewski: The price of evolution: how thermodynamics shapes gene regulation
Mon, May 6, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm

Many of the physical processes in a cell consume energy, but we are only beginning to understand how these costs have influenced the course of evolution. Biology is strewn with counter-intuitively complex mechanisms whose evolutionary predecessors must have consumed significant energy resources without any clear fitness benefit.  So…

María de la Paz Fernández: Sex Differences in the Drosophila Circadian System
Mon, May 13, 2024, 12:30 pm1:30 pm

Circadian clocks regulate the timing of various behavioral and physiological activities in most organisms on a 24-hr scale such that they are phased appropriately to external, cyclic changes in the environment. The clock neuronal network in Drosophila melanogaster is comprised of  ~150 neurons distributed bilaterally in the brain,…