CCAM Faculty
Ji Yu
Assistant Professor of Genetics and Develpmental Biologyy
Contact Information
Dr. Ji YuUniversity of Connecticut Health Center
Center for Cell Analysis & Modeling
263 Farmington Avenue
Farmington, CT 06030-6406
Phone: 860-679-7680
Fax: 860- 679-1039
jyu@uchc.edu
Yu Lab Web Page
Research Interests
The complexity of biological phenomena is both architectural, that is, due to the large number of interacting molecular components underlining any biological processes, and also a result of the inherent heterogeneity in this network of molecules. To describe these systems in a quantitative way, we need new tools to analyze the behavior of single cells and single molecules, which our lab is striving to develop and to apply to many compelling biological questions.
Single molecule biophysics
A strong barrage of single molecule experimental work during the past decade has greatly expanded our capability in dissecting the real time dynamics of complicated molecular interactions. A particular problem we are interested in is the DNA segregation in prokaryotes during cell division. Traditionally believed to be totally passive the process has now been widely re-examined due to many new evidences pointing to an active partitioning process. We will develop single molecule assays for both in vitro and in live cells and try to understand the molecular mechanism of this segregation process.

