Lecturer: Dr. Rami Pugatch
Affiliation: Institute for Advanced Study
Abstract:
What determines the growth rate of a cell? Is there
a common law that describes the connection
between size at birth and growth rate for all
balanced-growing cells? How exponential growth
at all possible? In this talk I will offer a novel
systems analysis perspective on these biological
questions. I will explain two generic methods to
accelerate a complex assembly process beyond its
critical path duration - the duration of the longest
serial process that is bound to occur. I will then
apply these ideas to the process of cellular self-
replication and derive a novel type of growth law
relating the doubling rate of a cell with the number
of progenies concurrently under production, and
the critical path duration.