TiMe Cohort Year
2016
Main focus of research
Developing technologies to measure stimulation in single cells with single-molecule sensitivity to decipher how variations in stimulation results in variations in downstream phenotype and cell fate.
PI
Andrew Smith
Phuong Le is a PhD BioEngineering candidate in Dr. Andrew Smith’s group. She received her BS from the University of California, Davis.
Quantitative understanding of cellular behavior is one of the major objectives in biology. In the past, studies using average techniques across whole cell population often masked unique biology in individual cells. Recently, many studies on single-cell behaviors have revealed high degrees of cell-to-cell variations, affecting normal tissue development, disease progression, and drug resistance. These expression patterns and phenotype are directly controlled by external stimulations by signaling, however, stimulation is not directly measured in single cells. My research focuses on developing technologies to measure stimulation in single cells with single-molecule sensitivity to decipher how variations in stimulation results in variations in downstream phenotype and cell fate.