Journal of Computational Systems Biology

Cell adhesion is crucial for many biological phenomena such as tissue morphogenesis, immune response and tumor invasion. The aggregations of membrane receptors on cellular interfaces during these physical processes initiate the elaborate intracellular networks of signaling pathways. Despite of remarkable experimental achievements, there is still long way to eventually form a mechanistic understanding to cell adhesion, and further decipher its intricate connection to signal transduction. By integrating computational analysis with experimental measurements, our lab focuses on developing multi-scale modeling frameworks to study the cross-talks between cell adhesion and cell signaling. We are particularly interested to ask following questions: why and how different cells form contacts; when and where these contacts are formed at specific locations of our bodies; what are their functional impacts to the downstream signaling pathways, and further to our human health.