Physics and Engineering at EMBL
Ellenberg Group
Functional dynamics of nuclear structure during the cell cycle
Engineering and physics are essential in two areas of our work. First, systematic identification and characterisation of cell division genes requires novel high throughput methods. In our group we therefore constantly engineer both software and hardware to automate advanced microscopy and single molecule methods, applying machine vision approaches to increase throughput and decrease bias in these experiments. Second, interpreting protein dynamics inside cells requires understanding their rheology. To this end we are interested in the physical properties of the microenvironment in the cell nucleus, which we probe by biophysical methods and model in computer simulations.
Selected publications
Phenotypic profiling of the human genome by time-lapse microscopy reveals cell division genes. Neumann, B., Walter, T., Heriche, J.K., Bulkescher, J., Erfle, H., Conrad, C., Rogers, P., Poser, I., Held, M., Liebel, U., Cetin, C., Sieckmann, F., Pau, G., Kabbe, R., Wünsche, A., Satagopam, V., Schmitz, M.H., Chapuis, C., Gerlich, D.W., Schneider, R., Eils, R., Huber, W., Peters, J.M., Hyman, A.A., Durbin, R., Pepperkok, R. & Ellenberg, J. Nature. 2010 Apr 1;464(7289):721-7.
Molecular crowding affects diffusion and binding of nuclear proteins in heterochromatin and reveals the fractal organization of chromatin. Bancaud, A., Huet, S., Daigle, N., Mozziconacci, J., Beaudouin, J. & Ellenberg, J. EMBO J. 2009 Dec 16;28(24):3785-98
Dissecting the contribution of diffusion and interactions to the mobility of nuclear proteins. Beaudouin, J., Mora-Bermudez, F., Klee, T., Daigle, N. & Ellenberg, J. Biophys J. 2006 Mar 15;90(6):1878-94