Building The Cell

a special-interest sub-group meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology
Saturday December 13, 2008. 12:30 - 5:00 pm. Moscone Center, San Francisco, Room 101

Introduction to Building the Cell

Modern cell biology has made great strides in understanding cell structure and function. As with any engineering problem, however, there is a third important aspect that needs to be understood besides structure and function, and that is assembly. How are the complex three dimensional structures found within the cell specified by a one-dimensional genome? In this session we will explore the mechanisms by which cellular structures are determined and regulated. Because this question lies at the interface of biology and physics, this year's Building the Cell will be a highly interdisciplinary session with speakers whose interests range from soft matter physics and mathematical modeling to imaging and cell biology.

Session Organizer Wallace Marshall, Dept. of Biochemistry & Biophysics, UCSF

Schedule

12:30 Wallace Marshall, Dept. of Biochemistry & Biophysics, UCSF

Introductory Remarks - towards an engineering view of cell biology

12:45 Rob Phillips Dept. of Applied Physics, Caltech

-Cellular Building Materials

1:15 Gia Voeltz MCDB Dept., University of Colorado Boulder

-How proteins shape membrane tubules in the endoplasmic reticulum

1:45 Jian Liu Dept. of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley

-A Mechanochemical feedback model for endocytic vesicle formation

2:15 Orna Cohen-Fix NIDDK, National Institutes of Health

-Lipid and the art of nuclear shape maintenance

2:45 - 3:00 intermission

3:00 Ed Munro Center for Cell Dynamics Friday Harbor Labs

-Organizing contractility in the early worm embryo

3:30 Margaret Gardel Dept. of Physics, University of Chicago

-Rregulation of force transmission in contractile F-actin networks

4:00 Jennifer Ross, Dept. of Physics, University of Massachusetts

-Cytoskeletal architecture regulates motor activity

4:30 Alex Mogilner Dept. of Mathematics, UC Davis

-Roles of membrane and cytoskeleton in determining cell shape

How to attend

Building the Cell is formally a pre-meeting special interest subgroup session attached to the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The session is held the afternoon before the official start of the meeting, however in order to attend the session one must be registered for the ASCB meeting. Detailed information about the ASCB meeting including registration, program, and accommodations may be found at the ASCB Annual Meeting Web Site. Apart from registering for the ASCB meeting, no special registration is required specifically for Building the Cell. Please join us for an exciting discussion at the interface of biology and physics!

Further Reading

Rafelski SM, Marshall WF. 2008. Building the cell: design principles of cellular architecture.
Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 9, 593-602.

Marshall WF. 2007. Stability and robustness of an organelle number control system: modeling and measuring homeostatic regulation of centriole abundance.
Biophysical Journal 93,1818-1833.

Feldman JL, Geimer S, Marshall WF. 2007. The mother centriole plays an instructive role in defining cell geometry.
PLoS Biology 5,e149.

Marshall WF. 2004. Cellular length control systems.
Ann. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 20,677-93.

Links to past Building the Cell sessions Building the Cell 2007