Welcome

Welcome to the Laboratory of Living Matter at Yale University!

We are interdisciplinary scientists using tools from soft matter physics and synthetic biology to investigate how the physical properties of cells influences fundamental life processes.  We are particularly interested in how cells sense, produce, and transmit mechanical forces.  In addition to using novel methods to measure the forces generated by living cells, we also design and engineer biomimetic models of cells and tissues from scratch.  These models are built from purified cytoskeletal proteins and membrane components.  Thus, we create 'bottom-up' non-living models which can reproduce mechanical force generation and perform some of the physical behaviors of the cell. Recently we have been interested in using molecular dynamic simulation to explore how cytoskeletal networks store and dissipate energy.

We are located at the Yale Systems Biology Institute.  We are part of the Physics DepartmentBiomedical Engineering Department and the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MDCB) Track.  We are also part of the Physical Engineering and Biology (PEB) Program.

We are looking for motivated PhD students and Postdocs.  Please contact us if you are interested!

 

News

September 30, 2019
Lab member Dr. Vikrant Yadav and Dr. A. Pasha Tabatabai published a paper on memory storage in active networks made of actin polymers. The work was published in Advanced...
September 30, 2019
Our recent paper on memory storage in actin networks was featured in Yale News. Congratualtions Dr. Vikrant Yadav and Dr. A. Pasha Tabatabai. The study was led by Prof....
June 13, 2019
Winning entries of LLM members Dr. Camelia Muresan and Dr. Sulaiman Yousufzai from “Art in Research” competition are featured in Yale News. To read the full story at Yale...