About the

Richard D. Berlin

Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling

CCAM is one of five National Technology Centers for Networks and Pathways, NTCNP, funded throught the NIH Technology Center for Networks and Pathways, TCNP. CCAM integrates new microscope technologies for making quantitative in vivo live cell measurements with new physical formulations and computational tools that will produce spatially realistic quantitative models of intracellular dynamics.

The overarching rationale for CCAMs research as a TCNP is that polarity in networks and pathways is determined by the spatial organization, subcellular distribution, dynamic behavior, interactions and functions of specific molecules within the cell. To investigate these relationships, we use a tripartite approach described as:

1) Measure - develop new tools for measuring spatially resolved dynamic behavior of molecules in cells, 2) Model - develop new methods for spatial modeling of biological systems. 3) Manipulate - develop new techniques for manipulating the spatial distribution of molecules in living cells.

These three analytical approaches, (measurement, modeling and manipulation) are integrated and interdependent, e.g. models generate predictions that can be validated with new measurements, as well as experimental approaches that manipulate intracellular signals and structures. These approaches allow us to tackle fundamental questions of how the spatial organization of molecules in cells is established and how it is utilized to control cell function.

CCAM hosts a confluence of expertise in physics, chemistry, software engineering and experimental cell biology immersed in a biomedical research setting that values interdisciplinary collaborations, and our Training Program in Quantitative Cell Biology provides a new model for interdisciplinary training in cell biology. CCAM is the home of the Virtual Cell, a computational environment for cell biological modeling developed as a NIH-designated National Resource, and also hosts a variety of projects in biophotonics and live cell microscope imaging methods as well as a state-of-the-art user microscopy facility for nonlinear, confocal, and widefield microscopy.

Images courtesy of Tayebeh Rezaie