Biography

Wolfgang Losert obtained his PhD from City College of the City University of New York. His research is centered on dynamical properties of Complex Systems at the convergence of physics and biology. A special focus is on applications to cancer biology. Examples of dynamical processes that are often found in complex systems are pattern formation and dynamical phase transitions. The main thrust of his work on living systems is to assess how cell motion and collective behavior are affected by physical cues, in particular the topography of the surface, surface adhesivity, and cell-cell adhesion. We discovered that cell migration can be guided by nanotopography via control of the dynamics of actin waves and that cell-surface adhesion can significantly alter the intracellular and collective cell dynamics. We also developed new tools to integrate measurements of the physical properties of living systems with biomedical phenotypes, via advanced statistical and machine learning analysis of multiple types of information, most at the single cell level.