Lecturer: Prof. Yitzhak Rabin from Bar-Ilan University.
Abstract:

Theoretical ideas and experimental findings about the organization of DNA in nuclei of living cells are discussed.
Recent experiments which monitor the dynamics of labeled chromatin show that, in addition 
to thermal noise due to Brownian motion of DNA and of proteins, the motion of chromatin is dominated by chemical energy (ATP) -driven processes that 
are necessary to maintain life (transcription, replication, chromatin remodeling, motor proteins, etc). The resulting molecular-scale stirring of the viscoelastic fluid, the nucleoplasm of eukaryotic cells,
gives rise to a new type of hydrodynamics (scale-dependent viscosity). The observed anomalous dynamics of chromatin 
appears to violate basic principles of polymer physics. We argue that this is the signature of long temporal correlations of active processes 
in nuclei of cells and discuss the biological significance of these observations.