Recent experiments in neuroscience suggest that cortical networks at many scales may be operating near a critical point, much like that seen in a second-order phase transition. In this talk I will review experimental data from several labs, including ours, which suggest this. I will also explain why information transmission, information storage…

The self-assembly of proteins ("protein folding") is one of the key steps in the function of proteins, such as enzymes and antibodies. The mechanism by which this assembly occurs has been an outstanding question in molecular biophysics for decades. Also, protein misfolding has been linked to numerous diseases, such as Alzhemier's and Huntington…

Flocking - the collective motion of large numbers of organisms or other self-propelled entities - exhibits a number of strange and baffling phenomena. Indeed, its very existence in two dimensions would appear to violate a fundamental theorem of statistical mechanics, while in any spatial dimension, flocks exhibit giant number fluctuations far in…

I describe Hi-C, a novel technology for probing the three-dimensional architecture of whole genomes by coupling proximity-based ligation with massively parallel sequencing. Working with collaborators at the Broad Institute and UMass Medical School, we used Hi-C to construct spatial proximity maps of the human genome at a resolution of 1Mb. These…

Our visual system is capable of inferring the structure of 2-d images at a resolution comparable (or, in some tasks, greatly exceeding) the receptive field size of individual retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Our capability to do so becomes all the more surprising once we consider that, while performing such tasks, the image projected on the retina…

Adam Cohen Depts. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and of Physics Harvard University Abstract: To probe neural function, one would like to monitor the simultaneous electrical activity in a large number of neurons, with high resolution in space and time. Genetically encoded optical indicators of membrane potential are a promising…

Biophysics Seminar Series Fall 2010 Monday, October 4, 2010 Joseph Henry Room, Physics Building 11:45AM – 1:00PM (Lunch will be served at 11:45AM) Josh Shaevitz Physics and Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics Princeton University

Speaker: Dan Fu The George R. Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract: Modern microscopy has long been the driving force in tackling biological and biomedical problems. Key innovations in new microscopy technologies are focused on three different aspects: resolution, contrast and speed. Fluorescence…