Rice University
Department of Bioengineering - MS142
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, Texas 77251-1892
Fax:
1(713)3485877
Phone:
1(713)3485502
Links:
- Bioengineering Department
- Rice University
(Last modified
August, 2008)
Rice University
Department of Bioengineering - MS142
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, Texas 77251-1892
Fax:
1(713)3485877
Phone:
1(713)3485502
- Bioengineering Department
- Rice University
(Last modified
August, 2008)
One of the
common approaches to studying cellular networks is to decompose them into small
repeated building blocks—so called network motifs.Despite
conservation of their regulatory core, functional networks containing these
motifs often display variations in their structure.
We want
to understand the evolutionary design principles of these networks
by in
correlating these variations with the different
regulatory demands.
These
principles can hopefully be used as signatures of particular physiological
function. In particular, we are interested in the networks characterizing
bacterial sigma factors and two-component systems. These are two widespread
mechanism of master level regulation of bacterial gene expression. 
Until
recent decades, all knowledge about bacteria came from studies of population of
isolated cells. However, we now understand that a significant number of bacteria
spend some of their lifecycle in social communities such as biofilms. In these
communities individual cells cooperate to obtain group-specific fitness
advantages. Such cooperation requires intercellular communication such as
quorum-sensing signaling. We are
interested
in constructing mathematical models of these and other intercellular signalling
circuits and comparing their structure and performance to establish principles
of their organisation.We
are also
interested in comparing quorum-sensing circuits in closely related and distantly
related bacterial species and searching for examples of divergent and convergent
evolution.
In
recent years the ubiquity of microbial communities in nature has become
apparent, for instance most bacteria related to human diseases are
associated with biofilms. Myxococcus xanthus is not a pathogen however
complex patters formed by these bacteria are often viewed as a model system of
multicellular bacterial development. In collaboration with experimental lab of
Roy Welch (Syracuse) we are interested
in modeling spatial organisation and dynamics of the patterns formed by M.
xanthus during vegetative and starvation conditions.