Principles of stopping and resuming life
My group is interested in how cells and organisms that, at a first glance, seem dead eventually 'wake-up' to re-enter replicative life. We use dormant microbial spores, budding yeast, and mammalian cells to reveal how cells and organisms function at the cusp of being dead and alive, and investigate a nebulous state that lies between life and death. Ultimately, we hope to quantitatively address a basic question: 'What does it mean to be alive?'
Keywords
Dormancy / spores / cell signaling / mathematical models / embryonic stem cells / genetic circuits / cell signalling / multicellular design principles / mathematical biology / synthetic biology