Welcome to the Rob Phillips Physical Biology Laboratory! Research in our group focuses on the development of quantitative, theoretical models to describe a broad range of biological phenomena. We then use these models to guide our experimental efforts, where we perform precision measurements to explore the validity of our predictions. Our group has graduate students from across campus including Biology and Bioengineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Applied Physics, and Physics. Some of our current principal research threads focus on broad questions of how genomes are organized both in sequence and spatially to regulate the expression of their genes, how the flow of energy through biological systems gives rise to their impressive fidelity, and questions on the diversity and ecological role of viruses in their natural environments.
