Dr. Thomas Gregor

  

 Thomas Gregor is a Professor of Physics and Biophysics at Princeton University. He first received a masters in physics in 1999 at the Geneva University in Switzerland and then a masters in chemistry in 2001 at Princeton. In 2005, he was awarded a PhD in biophysics at Princeton, where he continues to teach. 

    Gregor’s research tries to approach biology from a physics point of view. Traditionally, biological questions have been investigated using qualitative techniques that encourage interpretation from an evolutionary perspective. Gregor now uses recent advances in molecular biology, optical microscopy, nanoscopic physics, and computer science to interpret biological phenomena with theoretical predictions and models rooted in physical principles and formulated using mathematics. This allows for models to be quantitatively tested and validated by experiments. Some of his methods include using microscopes to measure concentration dynamics of proteins and signaling molecules and using image analysis and modeling to analyze data. The primary focus of his studies address questions about fruit fly embryo development and emergent collective behavior via cell signaling in amoeba populations.

    An example of some specific research that was done in his lab is a study of communication in social amoeba through concentration oscillations of small molecules. When this sort of communication is released, the amoebas tend to aggregate and form a singular organism. However, the mechanism of these cell interactions is not yet known, so Gregor’s lab is studying the optical concentration measurements of the relevant oscillating constituents to measure the spatiotemporal communication dynamics among a few of these amoeba cells. Then, a combination of electro-physiological and optical measurements will be used to measure similar dynamics in a developing network of cultured neurons. 

References:

https://molbio.princeton.edu/people/thomas-gregor

https://research.pasteur.fr/en/member/thomas-gregor/