Who We Are & What We Do

The Luthey-Schulten group is a computational and theoretical biophysical chemistry group working within the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Headed by Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten, the current research is focused on:

  1. Modeling a Minimal Cell
  2. Cell Simulation Software: Lattice Microbes
  3. Energy Metabolisms in Cells
  4. Combining Metabolic and Genetic Information Processes
  1. Ribosome Biogenesis in Whole Cells
  2. Cell Growth and Division
  3. Bistability in Bacterial and Yeast Genetic Switch
  4. Whole Cell Model of HeLa Cells

Links

Below are important additional links for more information about our work.

Affliates and Support

Lab
Highlights

The Luthey-Schulten Lab published work on Fundamental Behaviors Emerging from Whole Cell Simulations of a Genetically Minimal Cell in the journal Cell in Collaboration with Co-workers in the Saenz Group at TU-Dresden and the Synthetic Biology Group at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), January 20, 2022. A Research Highlight from Science Magazine is available at: Computer Mimics a Minimal Cell.

The New Yorker Magazine has published a research highlight of our Minimal Cell Simulations "A Journey to the Center of Our Cells" which is available at: Biologists are discovering the true nature of cells—and learning to build their own..

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Public Affairs Bureau has published a research highlight of our Minimal Cell Simulations "Researchers simulate behavior of living 'minimal cell' in three dimensions" which is available at: Simulations offer insight into fundamental principles of life.

Luthey-Schulten Lab members David Bianchi, Troy Brier, Ben Gilbert, Maddie Stover and Zane Thornburg gave talks at the 2021 J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) "Minimal Cell Workshop", September 20-27, 2021.

Luthey-Schulten Lab Members Ben Gilbert and Zane Thornburg published work on generating chrosome configurations of a genetically minimal cell from Cryo-electron Tomograms and Chromosome Capture maps in collaboration with the groups of Prof. Elizabeth Villa and Prof. Remus Dame in the journal Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, July 22, 2021. The article is already being cited and well read by the scientific community.

Luthey-Schulten Lab Members Zane Thornburg and Ben Gilbert gave talks and posters on modeling a genetically minimal cell and integration of experimental data and theory at the Biophysical Society Virtual Annual Meeting, February 22-26, 2021.

Luthey-Schulten Lab Members David Bianchi and Troy Brier published work on sRNA-chaperone protein mediated sugar shock response in collaboration with the groups of Prof. Carin Vanderpool and Prof. Taekjip Ha in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, December 30, 2020.

Professor Luthey-Schulten gave a talk on the “Macroeconomics of the Minimal Cell: Integration of Experiments, Theory, and Simulation” at the NSF-MIT Genome Architecture and Dynamics Virtual Workshop, June 15-19, 2020.

Professor Luthey-Schulten and Zane Thornburg gave talks on modeling the minimal cell at the iPoLS 2020 Virtual Meeting, June, 2020.

David Bianchi, Troy Brier and Zane Thornburg gave talks and presented posters on modeling the metabolism and gene expression of the minimal cell at the Biophysical Society (BPS) Annual Meeting 2020 in San Diego, CA, February, 2020.

Luthey-Schulten Lab Members Zane Thornburg, Marcelo Melo, David Bianchi and Troy Brier published work on kinetic modeling of genetic information processing in a genetically minimal cell in collaboration with the Synthetic Biology Group at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, November 28, 2019. The article is already being cited and well-read by the scientific community.

Professor Luthey-Schulten gave talks in September 2019 on modeling the minimal cell at the Beilstein Symposium in Ruedesheim, University of Essen-Duisburg and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.

The Luthey-Schulten group members: David Bianchi, Troy Brier, and Prof. Luthey-Schulten, along with Jingyi Fei's lab (University of Chicago Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) recently taught a module: Quantitative imaging and cell simulation of small regulatory RNA at the July 2019 NSF CPLC Summer School

Angela Barragan successfully defended her thesis in August 2019. Congratulations!

Prof. Luthey-Schulten was made a 2019 Fellow of the Biophysical Society at the BPS Annual Meeting 2019 in Baltimore MD

Prof. Luthey-Schulten was invested as the Murchison-Mallory Chair in Chemistry in March 2019

Zane Thornburg gave a talk on “Modeling Genetic Information Processes in a Minimal Cell" at the IPoLS Annual Meeting 2019 in Munich, Germany

Troy Brier and David Bianchi presented on "The Effect of Point Mutations on the Regulatory Kinetics of Small RNA in E. coli" at BPS Annual Meeting 2019 in Baltimore MD

The Luthey-Schulten group is hosting a workshop on Cell Scale Simulations July 18-20, 2018.

Dr. Wen Ma used NAMD to study strand switching of a DNA helicase: “Free energy simulations reveal molecular mechanism for functional switch of a DNA helicase”

Marcelo Melo and Dr. Rafael Bernardi authored a publication on a new QM/MM implementation in NAMD for Nature Methods: “NAMD goes quantum: An integrative suite for hybrid simulations”

Tyler Earnest and John Cole authored a review of stochastic cell simulations for Reports on Progress in Physics: “Simulating Biological Processes: Stochastic Physics from Whole Cells to Colonies”

Marcelo Melo presented his research "An Application of NAMD QM/MM Interface to the tRNA Charging Mechanism" at the CPLC/CBQB Graduate Student & Postdoc Symposium, September 19, 2017. Urbana, IL.

David Bianchi presented his research "A Hybrid Stochastic-Deterministic Simulation of the Galactose Genetic Switch in Yeast" at the joint JNN/CeNS/CPLC Workshop at LMU, Munich Germany.

Dr. Zhaleh Ghaemi presented her research "Whole-cell simulations of mRNA splicing" at the International Conference on Systems Biology, August 6-12, 2017. Blacksburg, VA.

Dr. Marian Breuer presented his research "The Metabolic Reconstruction of a Minimal Cell" at the International Conference on Systems Biology, August 6-12, 2017. Blacksburg, VA.