Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Immune cells such as neutrophils follow chemical signals to find sites of infection and inflammation. Downstream of cell surfaces receptors that detect these chemicals, the cells must use molecular machinery to prioritize between competing chemical inputs and to measure spatial differences in concentration across the cell. With a goal of developing molecularly grounded mechanistic models for how they do this, we are developing new technologies to directly control cell stimulation and measure corresponding signaling events within the cell. We have discovered that the cells have different characteristic signaling responses to different attractant molecules, and we are measuring how receptors inputs are processed into patterns of downstream signaling activation in space and time.