Yi-Ju Chen Email & Phone Number

Greater San Diego Area

Greater San Diego Area

• Identified the underlying physical mechanism and developed a quantitative theory for bacteriophage genome delivery into live bacterial cells. Addressed long-standing conceptual problems associated with the viral infection process.• Constructed biophysics-based models to: Describe the signal transduction and adaptation in the fly olfactory receptor neurons & Explain the statistical properties of the receptor repertoire, which are key to the coding principles of the olfactory circuit.• Authored manuscripts for publication.

Greater San Diego Area

• Analyzed fly olfactory response measurements to predict odor mixture processing from responses to pure odorants.• Developed and applied biophysical theory to reveal latent variables in the current experimental design. Resulted in significant improvements to the experimental design & Facilitated proper interpretation of the results.

Greater Los Angeles Area

• Conceived and designed the study of the molecular balance, dynamics, and cell-to-cell variability in the viral lytic production process, using single-molecule DNA fluorescence in situ hybridization and fluorescently tagged viral proteins.• Optimized the real-time, single-virus visualization the bacteriophage genome ejection process and examined its speed and driving forces.• Adopted the tethered particle motion method to investigate sequence-dependent flexibility of DNA and how it modulates the kinetics of protein-mediated structural rearrangement of DNA, which is prominent for transcriptional regulation.• Wrote papers and sections of NSF/NIH grant proposals.

Greater Los Angeles Area

• Held weekly sessions, developed practice problems/experimental projects, and evaluated student comprehension for graduate-level courses in bioengineering/applied physics (physical and synthetic biology boot camp, physical biology of the cell) and the freshman physics course.• Demonstrated microscopy/wet lab techniques and MATLAB image processing to biology undergrads (the great ideas of biology: an introduction through experimentation).

Ph.D., Physics

Activities and Societies: • Research group: Physical Biology of the Cell • Dissertation: The Mechanical Genome in Regulation and Infection

B.S., Physics

B.S.E., Electrical Engineering