Biological Physics
Biological systems present a wealth of interesting physics puzzles. The study of biological physics has always been highly interdisciplinary, extending across the interface of physics, biology, and chemistry. In recent years biological physics has expanded to overlap newer fields such as bioinformatics, physical biology and systems biology.
Thomas Angelini
Cell Mechanics and Biophysics Research
Gabriel Birzu
Quantitative Models of Microbial Ecosystems
Stephen Hagen
Gene Regulation and Bacterial Dynamics
Emrah Şimşek
Quantitative Systems Microbiology of Environmental Stress and Antibiotic Resistance
BingKan Xue
Models of Species Interaction, Adaptation, and Evolution
Angelini Lab
The Angelini lab works in the interdisciplinary fields of soft matter, biophysics, and biomaterials. Our students have made groundbreaking discoveries about the fundamental mechanical behaviors of living cells, like how fluctuations in cell volume couple to large-scale patterns of motion in living tissue models, or how immune cells migrate in 3D through porous media to attack diseased tissue like cancer, or how basic mechanical instabilities can be predicted and controlled in 3D bioprinted cell populations. Executing our work often requires new materials, methods, and apparatus to be developed, leading to the invention of patented technologies. Angelini lab students learn to build instruments like 3D printers and to synthesize polymers, gels, and particles. Students become experts in microscopy, photography, x-ray scattering, light scattering, rheology, and contact mechanics. Often, we combine these methods to perform multi-modal measurements.
Postdoc Student: Vignesh Subramaniam
PhD Students: Tia Monjure, Motahareh Soufi, Chih-Yi Wang
Undergraudate Researchers: Felipe Bonini, Billy Hall, Vivek Ramroop, Isaac Savin
Birzu Group
The Birzu group aims to develop quantitative models of microbial ecology and evolution. Currently we are working on understanding how diversity evolves in bacterial populations from hot springs and the ocean and what are the ecological consequences of this diversity at the community level. Our approach is based on methods from statistical mechanics and stochastic processes and we use a combination of theory, computation, and data analysis to address these questions.
Graduate Researchers: Joe Popp, Abhisek Sinha, Wanyue Wang
Undergraduate Researchers: Wuzhou Xiong, Nhat Huy Tran (2024-25)
Evolutionary Scenario for Yellowstone Cyanobacteria
Genealogies in Spatial Populations
Pulled-pushed Transition During Spatial Expansions
Hagen Lab
The Hagen laboratory works in experimental biological physics, with an emphasis on gene regulatory circuits, bacterial communication, and protein conformational dynamics and folding. Recent projects have explored dynamics in bacterial regulatory systems based on quorum (pheromone) signaling, including the role of noise and signal crosstalk, the activation of bimodality, wave propagation, and environmental stress response. Students in the lab learn microbiological techniques in addition to physical methods of microfluidic fabrication, singe-cell and confocal fluorescence microscopy, time resolved spectroscopy, and mathematical modeling.
Şimşek Lab
The Şimşek Lab explores how bacteria adapt and evolve under environmental challenges such as nutrient shifts, antibiotic stress, and mobility constraints. Combining quantitative experiments with theoretical/computational modeling, Şimşek Lab investigates how heterogeneity, interactions, and feedback shape bacterial responses to environmental stress across scales—from single cells to cell populations to communities of multiple interacting populations.
PhD Student: Chuks Onyeka
Undergraduate Researchers: Corey Arms, Emma Kerr, David Min, Ryan Segalla, JR Taragjini, Amanda Vorobyev
Xue Group
The Xue group studies diverse biological phenomena in search for general principles. Biological systems have special properties that distinguish them from usual physical systems, requiring new approaches that expand the scope of physics. We use methods from statistical physics, information theory, machine learning and more to develop theoretical frameworks for studying phenotypic variation among populations, adaptation to changing environments, species interactions and ecological communities, evolution and developmental dynamics, as well as memory and cognition.
Postdoc Student: Zachary Jackson
PhD Students: Kian Greene, Henry Hill
Undergraduate Researchers: Jeremy Ehrenpreis, Vincent Gillaspy, Andrew Harwood, Chris Villa