报告题目 (Title)：Deciphering complex single cell behaviors by high-throughput long-term time-lapse imaging and screening（通过高通量延时成像技术来研究单细胞层面的复杂行为）

报告人 (Speaker)： 袁若石 博士（加州大学伯克利分校）

报告时间 (Time)：2021年11月29日(周一) 10: 00

报告地点 (Place)：校本部G309

邀请人(Inviter)：敖平 教授

摘要（Abstract）：

In no area of science complex behavior is more ubiquitous than in biology. Traditional quantitative approaches from physics encounter difficulties in describing such processes, which are in nature nonlinear, stochastic, dissipative and without detailed balance. In this talk, I will focus on how precise behaviors of single cells are emergent from individual noisy intracellular chemical reactions. We have developed both novel theoretical methods and experimental platforms for such purposes. For the theory part, we have derived fundamental limits for timing in chemical reaction systems, by greatly generalize an elegant proof for bounds on first passage time regarded as “the most important result” in the field and took mathematicians a few decades to find. We then turn to practical reaction mechanisms and find unexpectedly that the widely used Michaelis-Menten kinetics is almost the opposite of the optimal strategy, but some simple kinetic mechanisms can get close to the best precision. A recently developed high-throughput, long-term, single cell time-lapse imaging and screening platform enables for the first time detailed characterization and isolation of dynamic phenotypes of single cells. Experimental results show that the simple but near-optimal mechanism is in fact used in all three systems that have been studied in depth using such a platform.

报告人简介：

Dr. Yuan received dual undergrad degrees in physics and computer science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He completed his PhD under supervision of Prof. Ping Ao in 2016, during which he was trained as a theorist in both areas of physics and biology. He then joined Dr. Johan Paulsson’s lab at Harvard Medical School as a postdoc and started doing single cell experiments. He is currently working with Dr. Adam P. Arkin at University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Yuan’s research interest includes understanding genesis and development of complex diseases, deciphering precise control mechanisms in single cells, developing theoretical tools for stochastic dynamics, as well as single cell time-lapse imaging and screening.