A New Paradigm: Quantitative Cell Biology
Our Center’s mission is to develop 4D (space and time) whole cell computer models of bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cells, functioning under normal and stressed conditions and develop and extend cutting-edge tools to record datasets with unprecedented resolution of subcellular dynamics and composition. The research, education, and knowledge transfer are creating a new discipline – Quantitative Cell Biology – and providing training for researchers, students, and society.
Models integrate information from 1) super-resolution microscopy, 2) cryo-electron tomography of cellular architecture, 3) label-free IR imaging of metabolites, 4) describe fundamental biological processes from the coarse-grained to the all-atom levels, and 5) use super-intelligence and machine learning to analyze the cell behavior, biological data, improve imaging, and code development.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the tools we build, the data we generate, and the methods we develop are made freely available. We’re driving the state-of-the-art, and sharing all our techniques, methods, and findings with researchers and students worldwide.
This video shows the life cycle, from birth to division into two new daughter cells of the genetically minimal bacteria JCVI-Syn3A. The process takes roughly two hours in living cells and required about 4 days to simulate. Cell (2026), Thornburg, et al.
