Scale integration: the structure and dynamics of macromolecular assemblies, cells and tissues.

Gaudenz Danuser is Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. His lab develops quantitative live cell imaging approaches to study the roles of cytoskeleton dynamics in complex cell functions. How does the activity of a transcription factor drive the formation of a multicellular organism? How does the force generated by a motor protein affect the function of the brain? How do dynamic interactions in mitotic kinetochores influence the progression of cancer? These types of questions are some of the most profound, important, and difficult to address in modern biology. As posed in these questions, they have remained largely unaddressed because of one central challenge: the integration of spatial and temporal scales. How does the action of a single molecule affect the formation of a macromolecular assembly? How are millions of these assemblies coordinated to build cellular structures like nuclear envelopes, mitotic spindles, and so forth? How are the dynamics of multiple structures synchronized during cellular functions like migration, division, and so forth? And how are cells dynamically integrated into tissues, and tissues into organs? Understanding how scale and activities on different scales orchestrate the physiology and pathophysiology of a whole organism is arguably among the most challenging remaining questions in biomedical research.