Biography

b. 1966; B.A. Carleton College (1988); Ph. D. M.I.T. (1992) ; Faculty Scientist, Physical Biosciences LBNL (1998-); Assistant Professor, Bioengineering and Chemistry, University of California Berkeley. (1999-); Assistant Investigator, Howard Hughes Institute of Medical Research (2000-)

1999 TR100 Most Innovative Young Scientists Award

The interior of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells is a very non-classical environment as far as the assumptions of most physical chemistry is concerned. The solutions are not really aqueous; there is a great deal of organization and inhomogeneity in the chemical concentrations; macomolecules are densely packed together, there are mechanical couplings to the chemistry; and many processes are driven by numbers of molecules and at rates slow enough that the thermal fluctuations in reaction rates become significant. We re-examine the thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and kinetics of gene expression, biochemistry and morphogenesis under these novel conditions to try and understand the physics of the cellular environment.

Adam Arkin's Abstract