The Big Picture

I desire to understand how composition and structure contributes to physical properties of contractile assemblies of actin on the cellular scale.

An In Vitro approach is used to reconstitute isolated contractile assemblies. Micropatterning adherant molecules onto an elastic substrate allows contractile actin assemblies to be isolated and the forces generated by them to be measured. With the ability to finely adjust the composition and activity of these assemblies, I hope to be able to better understand the structure and regulation of the actin cytoskeleton.