Speaker
Description
The components of cells need to be organised and separated. Sometimes, this is done with physical membranes. But more recently, it's been discovered that the machinery and contents of cells can be separated from the surrounding environment like drops of oil separate from water -- we call these compartments biomolecular condensates. The diffusive dynamics and chemical kinetics of individual molecules inside condensates can be studied experimentally by fluorescent labelling, offering key insights into subcellular dynamics. I will discuss how biomolecular condensates govern the kinetics of chemical reactions and how this is reflected in the dynamics of labelled molecules. This will allow me to discuss how the physics of phase separation influences the evolution of single-molecule trajectories and governs their statistics. I will show that, out of equilibrium, the interactions leading to phase separation induce systematic directed motion at the level of single molecules and enhance diffusion. I will then present how we can use stochastic thermodynamics to quantify how far from equilibrium condensates are.
