Prof. Seppe Kuehn Has RA Positions in His Biological Physics Group Starting January 2014

Prof. Seppe Kuehn will be starting an experimental Biological Physics laboratory in the Department of Physics in January of 2014, and RA positions will be available. Our group is interested in elucidating statistical laws governing the evolution and dynamics of biological systems. Our laboratory will study evolutionary aspects of microbial behavior at the single-cell level and population dynamics in microbial communities. Our work will combine custom instrumentation with theoretical methods from statistical physics, statistical learning and dynamical systems.

An RA position will be available to study evolution of microbial behavior. Using microbial behavior as a model we will study the relationship between genetic and phenotypic variation. This relationship - how altering genes alters the properties of an organism - is fundamental to evolution, poorly understood and hard to measure. In a previous study, we developed an experimental platform to track swimming microbes using microfluidic devices and custom microscopes. We developed a statistical approach to construct a phenotypic space of behaviors and showed that this space is low dimensional (see our recent paper in PNAS, http://www.pnas.org/content/110/34/14018.abstract). This project will extend this work by using laboratory based evolution and genetic manipulation to systematically explore how genetic variation drives behavioral changes and the role of those changes in adaptation.

This project will require instrumentation such as microfluidics and microscopy as well as simple genetic manipulations of model organisms. While, no previous experience in biology is required, this project will require a motivated student interested in statistical physics, complex systems and the quantitative study of evolution. For more information contact Prof. Kuehn (seppe@illinois.edu).