Active Processes in Biology driven by Molecular Motors
Channel: ICTP Quantitative Life Sciences
Date: 07/08/2020

Speaker: Florian Berger - Division of Cell Biology, Neurobiology, and Biophysics, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Active processes are critical to maintain the proper function of all living cells. A large class of active processes is driven by molecular motors that transduce chemical energy into mechanical work. To understand their force-dependent dynamics, precise measurements with optical traps have been established. Because of the stochastic nature of the dynamics, interpretation of the experimental data is not straightforward. We recently introduced a quantitative framework to analyze experimental data and to extract biophysical relevant quantities. We apply this method to data from human dynein to predict the maximal force it can generate.

To further understand the physical mechanisms underlying biological processes, we investigate the role of molecular motors in large-scale simulations. We integrate single motor behavior into such simulations to study force production during T-cell activation.

2020_07_28-SEM-QLS-FlorianBerger.mp4