We are building a group of chemists, physicists, biologists, and engineers at Johns Hopkins University to investigate the exquisite mechanisms in signal transduction, the processing by which chemical information is integrated in living systems. In cells, signal transduction relies on a complex network of biochemical reactions properly orchestrated in space and time. Signaling reactions at the cell membrane further present a fascinating architecture of this complexity, where the presence of a surface confers additional unique regulation that is generally absent in solution. We take a highly interdisciplinary, quantitative approach to resolve the complexity of signal transduction, always with a strong physical perspective. We build reconstituted systems to control the complexity, design imaging assays to resolve the complexity, and develop kinetic models to understand the complexity—and from all of which, we aim to formulate fundamental principles governing biochemical processes in living systems.

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Movie 1 Reconstituted protein condensates (labeled) on membranes.
Movie 2 Kinetic bifurcation of single-molecule kinetics (yellow) driven by condensates.
Movie 3 Single-molecule activation assay on membranes. The microarray allows the unambiguous assignment of enzymatic turnover (red) to a single recruitment event (yellow).

Selected references: Science 2019; PNAS 2016; PNAS 2021; PNAS 2024; Nat. Commun. 2022.