“We’re coming at this from very different starting points,” cell biologist Gerlich said. “In my lab, we look in cells, where things are complex and hard to understand. Mike Rosen and Sy Redding are biochemists – they take the cellular components, purify them, study them in vitro, and characterize them with sophisticated techniques under very defined conditions.” Collepardo-Guevara, a computational biophysicist, develops theoretical models at many scales, ranging from single atoms up to collections of molecules condensing, to try and recapitulate the mechanistic forces taking place. “Because we have different areas of expertise, we can cover all these scales,” Rosen said.
“At large scale, the chromatin inside a nucleus is not a liquid,” Gerlich said. “Chromatin fibers themselves have very constrained mobility because the material, like the long stretches of DNA, is very viscous. One of our goals is to understand how, at a local scale, you have mobility in a liquid-like state and how that translates to long-range structural organization.”
What’s the recipe for early discovery?
The has been home turf for scientists studying LLPS since the phenomenon was first course. Immediately recognized as a new way for cells to organize internally, the study of LLPS (a process that can generate certain biomolecular condensates, or cellular compartments that form without a surrounding membrane) opened a floodgate of discovery. Evidence has mounted that condensates regulate critical cellular processes, from cell division to gene expression, and are involved in the development of cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and many other disorders. ( of pioneering research on LLPS at the .)
In 2013, with support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Rosen, Ron Vale, and Jim Wilhelm founded the which convened more than 70 scientists from around the world at over five consecutive summers. Their goal was generating knowledge in the just-emerging field of biomolecular condensates. The Summer Institute was fantastically productive, resulting in at least 25 published papers and quantum leaps in understanding how condensates form and behave in the cell.
The success of the Summer Institute was on Rosen’s mind as last summer’s collaboration, which they call “The Chromatin Consortium,” took shape.
“These programs focus on the initial discovery part of science, the spark of creativity that will eventually lead to a project that a granting agency will fund,” Rosen said. “It’s very hard to find funding to gather people to allow that initial spark to happen. But being back at again, feeling the excitement and seeing the pace of discovery, makes me think we, as a scientific community, need to find ways of enabling this. It takes the science up another click and allows the next set of questions to be addressed.”