Johan Elf
Professor at Department of Cell and Molecular Biology; Molecular Systems Biology
- Mobile phone:
- +46 70 425 02 98
- E-mail:
- johan.elf@icm.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Husargatan 3
752 37 UPPSALA - Postal address:
- Box 596
751 24 UPPSALA
- CV:
- Download CV
Short presentation
Johan Elf is Professor of Physical Biology at Uppsala University. He is a Wallenberg Academy Scholar and a member of the Uppsala University board and the board of the Royal Academy of Sciences.
His research if is mainly funded by KAW and ERC.
The research in the Elf lab aims to bridge the current gap between quantitative physical models and biological observations in order to identify and resolve inconsistencies in our current understanding of life at the molecular level.
Biography
The Elf group has pioneered single molecule tracking methods by means of fluorescence microscopy in living cells. This is accompanied by development of new microfluidic techniques and corresponding analysis software to control growth conditions and enable automation. The group also designs computational tools for stochastic reaction-diffusion simulation of intracellular kinetics and mathematical modeling of intercellular physiology.
Johan Elf has founded the Uppsala based diagnostics company Astrego. Astrego develops a rapid point of care test for antibiotic susceptibility.

Publications
Selection of publications
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Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association
Part of Science, p. 442-445, 2022
- DOI for Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association
- Download full text (pdf) of Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association
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RecA finds homologous DNA by reduced dimensionality search
Part of Nature, p. 426-429, 2021
- DOI for RecA finds homologous DNA by reduced dimensionality search
- Download full text (pdf) of RecA finds homologous DNA by reduced dimensionality search
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Time-resolved imaging-based CRISPRi screening
Part of Nature Methods, p. 86-92, 2020
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DNA surface exploration and operator bypassing during target search
Part of Nature, p. 858-+, 2020
- DOI for DNA surface exploration and operator bypassing during target search
- Download full text (pdf) of DNA surface exploration and operator bypassing during target search
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Nanometer resolution imaging and tracking of fluorescent molecules with minimal photon fluxes
Part of Science, p. 606-612, 2017
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Kinetics of dCas9 target search in Escherichia coli
Part of Science, p. 1420-1423, 2017
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The Synchronization of Replication and Division Cycles in Individual E. coli Cells
Part of Cell, p. 729-739, 2016
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Part of Nature Genetics, p. 405-+, 2014
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Extracting intracellular diffusive states and transition rates from single-molecule tracking data
Part of Nature Methods, p. 265-269, 2013
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Lost in presumption: stochastic reactions in spatial models
Part of Nature Methods, 2012
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The lac repressor displays facilitated diffusion in living cells
Part of Science, p. 1595-1598, 2012
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Stochastic reaction-diffusion kinetics in the microscopic limit
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, p. 19820-19825, 2010
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Effects of macromolecular crowding and DNA looping on gene regulation kinetics.
Part of Nature Physics, p. 294-297, 2009
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Probing transcription factor dynamics at the single-molecule level in a living cell.
Part of Science, p. 1191-1194, 2007
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Selective loss of charging of tRNA isoacceptors during amino acid limitation.
Part of Science, p. 1718-1722, 2003
Recent publications
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LacI strikes a balance between stability and inducibility
Part of Nucleic Acids Research, 2026
- DOI for LacI strikes a balance between stability and inducibility
- Download full text (pdf) of LacI strikes a balance between stability and inducibility
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Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis
Part of npj Digital Medicine, 2025
- DOI for Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis
- Download full text (pdf) of Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis
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Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis variant bovis BCG in 12 hours
Part of Nature Communications, 2025
- DOI for Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis variant bovis BCG in 12 hours
- Download full text (pdf) of Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis variant bovis BCG in 12 hours
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Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes
Part of Communications Biology, 2025
- DOI for Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes
- Download full text (pdf) of Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes
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Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells
Part of Nature Communications, 2025
- DOI for Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells
- Download full text (pdf) of Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells
All publications
Articles in journal
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LacI strikes a balance between stability and inducibility
Part of Nucleic Acids Research, 2026
- DOI for LacI strikes a balance between stability and inducibility
- Download full text (pdf) of LacI strikes a balance between stability and inducibility
-
Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis
Part of npj Digital Medicine, 2025
- DOI for Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis
- Download full text (pdf) of Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis
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Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis variant bovis BCG in 12 hours
Part of Nature Communications, 2025
- DOI for Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis variant bovis BCG in 12 hours
- Download full text (pdf) of Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis variant bovis BCG in 12 hours
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Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes
Part of Communications Biology, 2025
- DOI for Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes
- Download full text (pdf) of Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes
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Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells
Part of Nature Communications, 2025
- DOI for Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells
- Download full text (pdf) of Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells
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The Escherichia coli chromosome moves to the replisome
Part of Nature Communications, 2024
- DOI for The Escherichia coli chromosome moves to the replisome
- Download full text (pdf) of The Escherichia coli chromosome moves to the replisome
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Part of Communications Biology, 2024
- DOI for Three-dimensional localization and tracking of chromosomal loci throughout the Escherichia coli cell cycle
- Download full text (pdf) of Three-dimensional localization and tracking of chromosomal loci throughout the Escherichia coli cell cycle
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Real-time single-molecule 3D tracking in E. coli based on cross-entropy minimization
Part of Nature Communications, 2023
- DOI for Real-time single-molecule 3D tracking in E. coli based on cross-entropy minimization
- Download full text (pdf) of Real-time single-molecule 3D tracking in E. coli based on cross-entropy minimization
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Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023
- DOI for Regulatory elements coordinating initiation of chromosome replication to the Escherichia coli cell cycle
- Download full text (pdf) of Regulatory elements coordinating initiation of chromosome replication to the Escherichia coli cell cycle
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Can molecular dynamics be used to simulate biomolecular recognition?
Part of Journal of Chemical Physics, 2023
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Antibiotic perseverance increases the risk of resistance development
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023
- DOI for Antibiotic perseverance increases the risk of resistance development
- Download full text (pdf) of Antibiotic perseverance increases the risk of resistance development
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Part of PloS Computational Biology, 2023
- DOI for Label-free deep learning-based species classification of bacteria imaged by phase-contrast microscopy
- Download full text (pdf) of Label-free deep learning-based species classification of bacteria imaged by phase-contrast microscopy
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Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association
Part of Science, p. 442-445, 2022
- DOI for Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association
- Download full text (pdf) of Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association
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Direct measurements of mRNA translation kinetics in living cells
Part of Nature Communications, 2022
- DOI for Direct measurements of mRNA translation kinetics in living cells
- Download full text (pdf) of Direct measurements of mRNA translation kinetics in living cells
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Part of Journal of Physical Chemistry B, p. 9971-9984, 2022
- DOI for Conformational Change of Transcription Factors from Search to Specific Binding: A lac Repressor Case Study
- Download full text (pdf) of Conformational Change of Transcription Factors from Search to Specific Binding: A lac Repressor Case Study
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Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing and species identification for mixed samples
Part of Nature Communications, 2022
- DOI for Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing and species identification for mixed samples
- Download full text (pdf) of Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing and species identification for mixed samples
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The highly dynamic nature of bacterial heteroresistance impairs its clinical detection
Part of Communications Biology, 2021
- DOI for The highly dynamic nature of bacterial heteroresistance impairs its clinical detection
- Download full text (pdf) of The highly dynamic nature of bacterial heteroresistance impairs its clinical detection
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More Than Just Letters and Chemistry: Genomics Goes Mechanics
Part of TIBS -Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Regular ed., p. 431-432, 2021
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Imaging-based screens of pool-synthesized cell libraries
Part of Nature Methods, p. 358-365, 2021
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RecA finds homologous DNA by reduced dimensionality search
Part of Nature, p. 426-429, 2021
- DOI for RecA finds homologous DNA by reduced dimensionality search
- Download full text (pdf) of RecA finds homologous DNA by reduced dimensionality search
-
Time-resolved imaging-based CRISPRi screening
Part of Nature Methods, p. 86-92, 2020
-
DNA surface exploration and operator bypassing during target search
Part of Nature, p. 858-+, 2020
- DOI for DNA surface exploration and operator bypassing during target search
- Download full text (pdf) of DNA surface exploration and operator bypassing during target search
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Part of Journal of Physical Chemistry B, p. 3576-3590, 2019
- DOI for Long Time-Scale Atomistic Simulations of the Structure and Dynamics of Transcription Factor-DNA Recognition
- Download full text (pdf) of Long Time-Scale Atomistic Simulations of the Structure and Dynamics of Transcription Factor-DNA Recognition
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Rotational and Translational Diffusion of Proteins as a Function of Concentration
Part of ACS Omega, p. 20654-20664, 2019
- DOI for Rotational and Translational Diffusion of Proteins as a Function of Concentration
- Download full text (pdf) of Rotational and Translational Diffusion of Proteins as a Function of Concentration
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Part of EMBO Journal, 2018
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Structure-guided approach to site-specific fluorophore labeling of the lac repressor LacI
Part of PLOS ONE, 2018
- DOI for Structure-guided approach to site-specific fluorophore labeling of the lac repressor LacI
- Download full text (pdf) of Structure-guided approach to site-specific fluorophore labeling of the lac repressor LacI
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Variational Algorithms for Analyzing Noisy Multistate Diffusion Trajectories
Part of Biophysical Journal, p. 276-282, 2018
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tRNA tracking for direct measurements of protein synthesis kinetics in live cells
Part of Nature Chemical Biology, p. 618-626, 2018
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Antibiotic susceptibility testing in less than 30 min using direct single-cell imaging
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, p. 9170-9175, 2017
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In situ genotyping of a pooled strain library after characterizing complex phenotypes
Part of Molecular Systems Biology, 2017
- DOI for In situ genotyping of a pooled strain library after characterizing complex phenotypes
- Download full text (pdf) of In situ genotyping of a pooled strain library after characterizing complex phenotypes
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Nanometer resolution imaging and tracking of fluorescent molecules with minimal photon fluxes
Part of Science, p. 606-612, 2017
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Part of CELL SYSTEMS, p. 144-146, 2017
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Part of Biophysical Journal, 2017
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Part of ACS Photonics, p. 233-255, 2017
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Pointwise error estimates in localization microscopy
Part of Nature Communications, 2017
- DOI for Pointwise error estimates in localization microscopy
- Download full text (pdf) of Pointwise error estimates in localization microscopy
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Kinetics of dCas9 target search in Escherichia coli
Part of Science, p. 1420-1423, 2017
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Simulated single molecule microscopy with SMeagol
Part of Bioinformatics, p. 2394-2395, 2016
- DOI for Simulated single molecule microscopy with SMeagol
- Download full text (pdf) of Simulated single molecule microscopy with SMeagol
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The helical structure of DNA facilitates binding
Part of Journal of Physics A, 2016
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The Synchronization of Replication and Division Cycles in Individual E. coli Cells
Part of Cell, p. 729-739, 2016
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Part of Molecular Microbiology, p. 767-777, 2016
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Part of Developmental Cell, p. 5-6, 2016
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Hypothesis: Homologous Recombination Depends on Parallel Search
Part of CELL SYSTEMS, p. 325-327, 2016
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Segmentation and track-analysis in time-lapse imaging of bacteria
Part of IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, p. 174-184, 2016
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Part of CELL SYSTEMS, p. 219-220, 2016
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Part of Nucleic Acids Research, p. 3454-3464, 2015
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Part of Biophysical Journal, 2015
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Part of Biophysical Journal, 2014
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Stochastic reaction–diffusion processes with embedded lower-dimensional structures
Part of Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, p. 819-853, 2014
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Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, p. 11413-11418, 2014
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Part of Nature Genetics, p. 405-+, 2014
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Part of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences, 2013
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Transcription factor binding kinetics constrain noise suppression via negative feedback
Part of Nature Communications, 2013
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Transcription-factor binding and sliding on DNA studied using micro- and macroscopic models
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, p. 19796-19801, 2013
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A Bayesian Approach to Single Particle Tracking Analysis
Part of Biophysical Journal, 2013
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Extracting intracellular diffusive states and transition rates from single-molecule tracking data
Part of Nature Methods, p. 265-269, 2013
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Lost in presumption: stochastic reactions in spatial models
Part of Nature Methods, p. 1163-1166, 2012
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Lost in presumption: stochastic reactions in spatial models
Part of Nature Methods, 2012
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MesoRD 1.0: Stochastic reaction-diffusion simulations in the microscopic limit
Part of Bioinformatics, 2012
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The lac repressor displays facilitated diffusion in living cells
Part of Science, p. 1595-1598, 2012
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Positive allosteric feedback regulation of the stringent response enzyme RelA by its product
Part of EMBO Reports, p. 835-839, 2012
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MesoRD 1.0: Stochastic reaction-diffusion simulations in the microscopic limit
Part of Bioinformatics, p. 3155-3157, 2012
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Delay-induced anomalous fluctuations in intracellular regulation
Part of Nature Communications, 2011
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Part of Scientific reports, p. 195, 2011
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Single-molecule investigations of the stringent response machinery in living bacterial cells
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011
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Costs and constraints from time-delayed feedback in small gene regulatory motifs
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, p. 8171-8176, 2010
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Stochastic reaction-diffusion kinetics in the microscopic limit
Part of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, p. 19820-19825, 2010
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RNAs actively cycle on the Sm-like protein Hfq
Part of Genes & Development, p. 2621-2626, 2010
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Fokker-Planck approximation of the master equation in molecular biology
Part of Computing and Visualization in Science, p. 37-50, 2009
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Effects of macromolecular crowding and DNA looping on gene regulation kinetics.
Part of Nature Physics, p. 294-297, 2009
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Single molecule approaches to transcription factor kinetics in living cells
Part of FEBS Letters, p. 3979-3983, 2009
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Probing transcription factor dynamics at the single-molecule level in a living cell.
Part of Science, p. 1191-1194, 2007
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Bistable bacterial growth rate in response to antibiotics with low membrane permeability
Part of Physical Review Letters, 2006
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Noise-induced Min phenotypes in E. coli
Part of PloS Computational Biology, p. 637-648, 2006
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Stochastic reaction-diffusion simulation with MesoRD.
Part of Bioinformatics, p. 2923-4, 2005
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What makes ribosome-mediated transcriptional attenuation sensitive to amino
Part of PloS Computational Biology, 2005
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Part of J Mol Biol, p. 16-24, 2005
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Selective charging of tRNA isoacceptors induced by amino-acid starvation.
Part of EMBO Rep, p. 151-7, 2005
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Ribosome bypassing at serine codons as a test of the model of selective transfer RNA charging.
Part of EMBO Rep, p. 147-50, 2005
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Near-critical behavior of aminoacyl-tRNA pools in E. coli at rate-limiting supply of amino acids.
Part of Biophys J, p. 132-46, 2005
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Spontaneous separation of bi-stable biochemical systems into spatial domains of opposite phases
Part of Systems Biology, p. 230-236, 2004
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Near critical phenomena in metabolite pools
Part of Journal, p. 154-170, 2003
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The bacterial toxin RelE displays codon specific cleavage of mRNAs in the ribosomal A-site
Part of Cell, p. 131-140, 2003
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Systems biology is taking off.
Part of Genome Research, p. 2475-2484, 2003
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An efficient algorithm for mesoscopic reaction-diffusion simulation
Part of Proceedings of the SPIE conference on Fluctuations and Noise in Biological, Biophysical, and Biomedical Systems, 2003
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Fast evaluation of fluctuations in biochemical networks with the linear noise approximation.
Part of Genome Research, p. 2475-2484, 2003
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Selective loss of charging of tRNA isoacceptors during amino acid limitation.
Part of Science, p. 1718-1722, 2003
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Part of JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, p. 941-954, 2001
Articles, review/survey
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Single-Molecule Kinetics in Living Cells
Part of Annual Review of Biochemistry, p. 635-659, 2019
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Bursting onto the scene?: Exploring stochastic mRNA production in bacteria
Part of Current Opinion in Microbiology, p. 124-130, 2018
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Single molecule methods with applications in living cells
Part of Current Opinion in Biotechnology, p. 737-744, 2013
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Studying transcriptional interactions in single cells at sufficient resolution
Part of Current Opinion in Biotechnology, p. 81-86, 2011
Chapters in book
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Stochastic Modeling of Intracellular Kinetics
Part of System Modeling in Cellular Biology, p. 480, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2006
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Mesoscopic kinetics and its applications in protein synthesis
Part of Systems Biology, p. 95-118, Springer-Verlag GmbH, 2005
Conference papers
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Microfluidic chip for large-scale phenotypic characterization of E. coli
2019
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An Evaluation of the Faster STORM Method for Super-resolution Microscopy
Part of Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition, p. 4435-4440, 2014
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Problems of high dimension in molecular biology
Part of Proc. 19th GAMM Seminar Leipzig on High-dimensional problems, p. 21-30, 2003
Manuscripts (preprints)
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Transcription factor dissociation measurements using single molecule chase in living cells
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RecA mediated homology search finds segregated sister locus in minutes after a double stranded break
- DOI for RecA mediated homology search finds segregated sister locus in minutes after a double stranded break
- Download full text (pdf) of RecA mediated homology search finds segregated sister locus in minutes after a double stranded break
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Real-time pooled optical screening with single-cell isolation capability
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Molecular Origins of Kinetics and Selectivity in the lac operon
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The LacI hinge region balances binding stability against inducibility
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An Optical Pooled Screening Platform for Single-Molecule Measurements in Live Cells: A Pilot Study