How do our cells keep time – or pause it – to shape their physiology? Mustafa Aydogan investigates the fundamental principles of biological time control in animal development, metabolism, and disease. His laboratory particularly focuses on the emerging concept of autonomous clocks – subcellular timing mechanisms that are typically synchronized with major rhythmic programs such as the cell’s division cycle or its circadian clock, but which can also run independently to govern key events in cellular physiology. His team also studies how biological time can be suspended, uncovering the molecular circuits and metabolic programs that underlie quiescence, senescence, and dormancy.

Emerging RNA viruses—such as influenza, coronaviruses, and HIV—remain among the most pressing challenges to global health. While these viruses differ from one another, they often share structural and immunological features that could be harnessed to develop broad and effective therapies. With an eye toward pandemic preparedness and health equity, the Barnes lab is uncovering how these shared features can be exploited to design next-generation vaccines and antibody-based treatments. By combining structural biology, immunology, and protein engineering, Barnes and his team study how the immune system recognizes viral targets and how those responses can be optimized. A major focus is the large-scale discovery and improvement of broadly neutralizing antibodies, which can block multiple viral strains, alongside structure-guided strategies to engineer more effective vaccines. Together, these efforts aim to build a universal framework for stopping emergent viral threats before they become global crises.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules are remarkably versatile. Beyond encoding genetic information, they fold into diverse three-dimensional shapes that recognize proteins, small molecules, and other nucleic acids to regulate essential biological functions. For example, viruses use RNA structures to interact with their hosts’ molecular machinery and control their life cycles. Despite their significance in both health and disease, our understanding of RNA-based regulatory mechanisms remains limited, in part because RNA structures are very dynamic and flexible. The Bonilla lab integrates novel structural, functional, and computational approaches to visualize dynamic RNA structural landscapes and understand RNA function, aiming to reveal fundamental principles of RNA biology and to develop new therapeutic strategies targeting RNA-mediated viral processes.

The Brophy lab studies how plant form influences resilience to environmental stress. The group uses synthetic biology to reprogram developmental pathways – most often in roots – to uncover how structural traits arise and how they contribute to stress tolerance. This “build-to-understand” approach can reveal hidden regulators of development and it provides new tools for probing the link between form and function in plants and other multicellular organisms.

Our immune system has evolved to sense and eliminate harmful microbes, yet we tolerate beneficial bacteria that colonize our mucosal tissues. Chrysothemis Brown wants to understand the logic underlying the regulation of tolerance and immunity, and how balance is determined in different tissues and developmental stages. Brown and her team have identified a new immune cell that promotes tolerance to commensal microbes and food proteins. They now aim to define the principles and mechanisms underlying diverse immune responses to self and foreign proteins, with the goal of developing new therapeutics for autoimmunity, inflammatory diseases, and cancer.

Lucas Farnung investigates the molecular mechanisms governing chromatin structure and function during transcription and DNA replication. Farnung and his lab integrate biochemical and biophysical methods with structural biology techniques, including cryo-electron microscopy and protein structure prediction, to elucidate how transcription and replication machineries interact with nucleosomes, histone modifiers, and chromatin remodelers. This work aims to uncover fundamental principles of gene expression and epigenetic inheritance. By exploring how chromatin architecture modulates the flow of genetic information, Farnung’s research provides insights into the regulatory mechanisms that cells use to reliably interpret their genetic instructions.

Pathogens and cancers can evolve on very short timescales within our bodies. This rapid evolution enables these populations to develop their most dangerous traits: aggressive growth, resistance to drugs, and the ability to escape our immune systems or invade new parts of the body. Alison Feder studies these evolutionary pathways using clinically derived genomic sequencing data and novel computational methods and models. By understanding both genetic and environmental drivers of pathogen and cancer evolution within their hosts, the Feder lab hopes to discover new ways to interfere with disease progression.

Yvette Fisher studies spatial navigation in Drosophila to understand how nervous systems flexibly process information. The brain must constantly adjust its computations due to the influences of current surroundings, physiological needs, and past experiences. To understand how such changes are implemented across diverse timescales, Fisher and her team combine precise genetic manipulation with electrophysiology and optical measurements of neural activity in flies. The lab’s goal is to understand how flexible brain function is orchestrated at the level of molecules, cells, and circuits.

Learning to play your favorite song on the piano involves a familiar sequence – memorizing, practicing, and performing. But where are these memories stored, and how do we evaluate our own and others’ performances? These questions remain major mysteries in neuroscience. Vikram Gadagkar explores these questions by studying songbirds. Juvenile male songbirds go through a strikingly similar process – they memorize their father’s song, practice it, and perform it to attract a mate. By examining how songbirds assess their own singing, Gadagkar aims to uncover the brain’s mechanisms for performance evaluation – insights that could shed light on conditions like Parkinson’s disease and autism.

Theanne Griffith is fascinated by the complex and far-reaching physiological functions of a specialized class of sensory neurons in the peripheral nervous system, called proprioceptors. These neurons serve as a connection between muscles and mind and have traditionally been viewed as motion detectors that sense changes in muscle length and force to guide purposeful movement and reflexes. Using an integrative systems physiology approach that spans tissues and timescales, the Griffith lab is demonstrating that proprioceptors are more than motion detectors; in fact, they serve as key drivers of motor network development, maintenance, and repair.

Ferroptosis is a newly described iron-dependent form of cell death with far-reaching implications for both healthy physiology and disease. Whitney Henry investigates the fundamental biology of ferroptosis to understand when, where, and why it occurs. Her lab studies the factors that regulate a cell’s susceptibility to ferroptosis across diverse biological contexts, from therapy-resistant cancers and fatty liver disease to the menstrual cycle. By uncovering how ferroptosis may influence tissue function, immune responses, and regeneration, her research aims to advance our understanding of how metabolism, oxidative stress, and cell death converge to impact cell fate.

To survive harsh environments, many animals have evolved the ability to decrease their metabolic rate and body temperature and enter states of dormancy, such as torpor, hibernation, and cryobiosis. Siniša Hrvatin studies the biology of these states across model and non-model organisms. His lab focuses on uncovering neural circuits and axes that orchestrate these behaviors and aims to shed new light on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that enable life to adapt to low temperatures.

Isha Jain studies how oxygen shapes biology—from evolution to disease. Her lab investigates how organisms adapt to both low and high oxygen levels, uncovering fundamental metabolic strategies and identifying vulnerabilities that can be therapeutically targeted. By combining high-throughput genetics, in vivo physiology, and systems biology, Jain has discovered hypoxia therapies that extend lifespan in multiple disease models. In addition, Jain and her group have revealed new mechanisms of redox balance under extreme oxygen stress. Further, they have pioneered the concept of oxygen-based therapies to treat a broad range of metabolic conditions.

How do genes and molecules orchestrate the formation of the brain—and how do these processes go awry? Xin Jin’s lab develops scalable, in vivo functional genomics technologies to decode how genetic programs shape brain circuits across development, homeostasis, and disease. By integrating in vivo CRISPR screening with molecular, spatial, and whole-brain imaging approaches, her team dissects how genetics influence distinct cell types and tissue architectures. Through these innovations, the lab aims to uncover the fundamental principles by which genomes build and maintain complex neural systems over time.

How does the brain transform transient cellular dynamics into long-lasting behavioral changes? To study this problem, Tina Kim develops molecular technologies to record the activity history of living cells onto their own biological components. These technologies store brief periods of neurochemical signaling in the brain as molecular “tags,” which can be easily identified in each neuron at a later time. The Kim lab aims to use these technologies to understand how cellular dynamics drive neuroplasticity and animal behavior.

Ribosomes are essential molecular machines responsible for protein production, and their intricate composition has intrigued scientists for decades. But what happens when this composition changes? Kamena Kostova’s lab investigates both pathological and physiological alterations in ribosome composition. Pathological changes—triggered by damage, mutations, or assembly errors—can impair ribosome function and contribute to disease. Kostova’s team is uncovering how cells detect and degrade these defective ribosomes, while also exploring how failures in quality control lead to disease onset and progression. Her lab also investigates how physiological changes in ribosome composition that do not disrupt protein synthesis may instead play a regulatory role. Using zebrafish as a model system, the Kostova lab explores how dynamic ribosome remodeling supports embryonic development. This research reveals how the translation machinery adapts to stress, development, and disease.

Ai Ing Lim studies how the immune systems of mothers and their children interact during reproduction and early life development. From pregnancy to lactation, a mother’s immune system undergoes dramatic changes to support the developing baby while maintaining her own health. Lim’s lab investigates how these immune shifts affect not just reproductive organs but also the broader physiology of the mother during and after reproduction. Lim also explores how maternal exposure to widespread environmental factors shapes the offspring’s immune development. By studying maternal-offspring immune partnership, Lim aims to improve women’s reproductive health and optimize immune trajectories for future generations.

Movement arises from coordinated neural activity across the brain. Yet, the mechanisms by which neurons in distinct areas of the brain work together to produce specific actions remain unclear. Timothy Machado’s lab develops and uses large‑scale neural recording techniques to monitor activity across the mouse motor system as animals move in varied behavioral contexts. His lab integrates these data into computational models and validates them with targeted neural perturbations, revealing how the brain generates context-specific motor commands and functions as a unified whole to flexibly control behavior.

As we age, certain cells in our tissues stop dividing and begin releasing signals that can disrupt organ function. Hanna Martens and her lab explore how these “senescent” cells contribute to aging not only through chemical messengers, but also by altering the physical properties of the tissue environment. The Martens lab has developed innovative tools to track these processes and to understand how senescent cells evade immune clearance. Ultimately, the lab’s goal is to identify new strategies to prevent or even reverse age-related tissue decline and promote healthier aging.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) protects the brain and is essential for proper neuronal function, but it also poses a major obstacle to drug delivery to the brain. Natasha O’Brown’s lab studies how the BBB forms during development, maintains function throughout life, and fails in disease. By leveraging the zebrafish model system, her team combines live imaging with high-throughput in vivo genetic and chemical screens to identify the signals that regulate barrier integrity over time. Their work aims to define how the BBB is shaped by its cellular environment and how these interactions break down in neurodegeneration.

Earth’s rotation is the foundation for life’s daily rhythms. Even parasitic diseases have rhythms, as evidenced by the mysterious periodic fevers caused by malaria infection. Filipa Rijo-Ferreira’s laboratory studies circadian rhythms in parasitic diseases to understand how malaria parasites keep track of time. Her lab is uncovering the mechanisms regulating the parasite “clock” and how it interacts with the clocks of both the mosquito and the host to modulate transmission and pathogenesis of the disease.

Cristina Rodríguez develops advanced optical imaging technologies to visualize biological processes in their physiological context. Her lab integrates multiphoton microscopy with light-shaping techniques, such as adaptive optics, to overcome key limitations in imaging depth, resolution, and speed. The Rodríguez lab applies these innovations to visualize neuronal circuits in the rodent spinal cord in vivo, with the goal of revealing how neural circuits process somatosensory information. These advances will have a broad impact across diverse areas of biology.

Human cells consume a wide variety of nutrients and transform them into new molecules, serving specialized functions in bioenergetics, biosynthesis, and signaling. The fate and function of these nutrients change profoundly in human diseases. Interestingly, there are hundreds of thousands of these small molecules in our bodies, yet the identities of many of them remain unknown. To address this gap in knowledge, the Spinelli lab leverages an innovative platform using high-resolution mass spectrometry to discover and characterize previously unknown human metabolites. Identifying these molecules will help advance basic understanding of human biology. Further, it could also unveil mechanisms of disease pathogenesis and point to novel therapeutic strategies.

Elizabeth Wasmuth studies how sex hormone receptors drive development and disease. These receptors guide sexual differentiation and reproductive function early in life but later reactivate in aging tissues—fueling nearly 40% of cancers. Wasmuth’s lab combines structural biology and cancer research to uncover how these receptors change shape, form aberrant interactions, and evolve drug resistance. By revealing the shared and unique mechanisms of these powerful transcription factors, the Wasmuth lab aims to demystify the role sex hormone receptors play throughout the life cycle.

Cancer is a single-cell evolutionary process fueled by mutations and large chromosomal aberrations. Every tumor consists of a unique combination of altered features affecting thousands of genes. The wide range of chromosome numbers found across tumors is astounding, ranging from fewer than 46 to more than 92, and this genomic diversity makes it difficult to predict characteristics like growth, metastasis, and response to treatment. Emma Watson is interested in how tumor genome structure and composition relate to function. The Watson lab utilizes high-throughput genomic technologies to explore the vast phenotypic spaces generated by tumor genomic shuffling and chromosomal imbalance.

Enzymes catalyze some of the most challenging chemical reactions—such as nitrogen fixation and methane oxidation—under mild conditions. However, their vast synthetic potential remains largely untapped. Yang Yang integrates chemistry, biology, and artificial intelligence to design and evolve novel enzyme functions that transcend the boundaries of natural biology and traditional chemistry. His lab aims to uncover the fundamental biochemical, biophysical, and design principles that govern enzymatic function, enabling the rapid and precise synthesis of therapeutic agents—from complex small molecules to biomacromolecules—to drive innovation in biomedical science.

How does social isolation reshape the brain and behavior? Scientists have shown that extended deprivation of social contact affects human health and well-being. Social isolation is linked to increasing rates of anxiety, depression, violence, cognitive decline, heart disease and more, and yet we know relatively little about how the brain encodes this state. Taking a deep behavior approach, Moriel Zelikowsky and her group are exploring how cellular communication via long-acting, long-range neuromodulatory transmission may unlock the mystery of how the brain encodes social states such as those produced by prolonged social isolation.

Elisa Zhang’s laboratory studies the uterus’s remarkable capacity for scarless regeneration during the menstrual cycle as well as dynamic tissue remodeling during pregnancy, uncovering new insights into uterine disorders and tissue repair. Her group explores how the uterine inner lining breaks down and regrows each monthly cycle without scarring. By integrating these findings with studies on how the uterus and placenta sustain pregnancy, the Zhang lab aims to reveal new concepts and strategies for improving maternal-fetal outcomes, gynecological health, and regenerative medicine.