December 14-18, 2024. CCAM faculty attended the American Society of Cell Biology Annual Meeting 2024 in San Diego. Michael Blinov and Margaret Johnson (John Hopkins University) led the session on Biophysical Modeling of the Cell on December 14th. On December 15th, Leslie Loew, Ann Cowan, Stephan Hoops (U Virginia) taught COPASI and VCell tutorials during the workshop on
Mathematical Modeling for Cell Biology.

November 11, 2024. Dr. Eran Agmon, in collaboration with Liam Longo (Tokyo Institute of Technology) and Hiroki Kojima (University of Tokyo), has secured a grant from the John Templeton Foundation for a pioneering study on microbial community formation. The project, A-Life Meets B-Life, will leverage simulations (A-Life, or Artificial Life) and E. coli bioreactor experiments (B-Life, or Biological Life) to examine how microbial communities form and assemble under controlled, hybrid conditions. This research aims to reveal insights into microbial cooperation and community dynamics, with a focus on understanding how interactions within these communities may influence individuality and adaptability.

October 22, 2024. Dr. Abhijit Deb Roy gave a seminar titled “Deciphering the tubulin code of mechanobiology” to the Molecular and Cell Biology Department at UConn Storrs.

https://events.uconn.edu/molecular-and-cell-biology/event/274328-mcb-seminar-series-abhijit-deb-roy

October 17, 2024. Dr. Eran Agmon recently shared his insights at a John Templeton-funded workshop on Goal-Directed Systems in Bilbao, Spain. His talk, titled A Compositional Framework for Modeling Biological Agents, introduced a new approach to systems biology, advocating for modular, compositional models that better reflect the natural organization of biological systems. Dr. Agmon discussed how traditional simulations, often rigid and monolithic, fall short of capturing the dynamic interactions between subsystems that define real-life biological agents. In the compositional framework, interfaces and interconnections among subsystems play a crucial role, enabling multiscale simulations that span molecular to organismal levels.

October 10, 2024. The Agmon Lab is thrilled to welcome Dr. Tasnif Rahman, our newest postdoctoral researcher, who brings a blend of expertise in tissue engineering, computational biomechanics, and microbiology. Tasnif’s research will focus on developing multi-scale computational models to study the interactions between bacterial communities and host tissues, a vital area in understanding microbial dynamics within human health.

Tasnif completed his PhD at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where his thesis explored how multicellular mechanical models can explain symmetry breaking in tissue and organ morphogenesis. Now, he’s eager to build on his computational skillset and delve back into bacteriology, an area of study he first pursued during his undergraduate training in microbiology. Outside of research, Tasnif enjoys unwinding with video games, basketball, and dance music. His multidisciplinary background and enthusiasm for computational modeling make him a fantastic addition to the lab.