Prof. James Sethian & Dr. Rob Saye win Cozarelli Prize

2012-04-20T18:45:00.003-07:00

In February 2012, Bay Area PSOC Investigator James Sethian and his post-doc Rob Saye (a PSOC trainee) won a 2011 Cozarelli Prize from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for their paper.

As LBNL News Center writer Lynn Yarris described it

Their winning paper, “The Voronoi Implicit Interface Method for computing multiphase physics,” introduces a robust, accurate and efficient numerical method for tracking large numbers of interacting and evolving regions (phases) whose motions are determined by complex interactions of geometry, physics, constraints and internal boundary conditions.

The method makes use of Voroni diagrams, a way of subdividing 2 and 3-dimensional space into irregular but even subsections. Drs. Sethian and Saye have been intensely applying this method, along with their team, to problems in tissue mechanics and cell biology, building a complex computational environment with which to model the stresses and reactions of cells and cluster cells to a variety of mechanical forces.

The award was established in 2005 and named in 2007 to honor late PNAS Editor-in-Chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli. Prof. Cozarelli was a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley and mentored several biophysics projects that applied quantitative approaches to biological problems.

Bay Area PSOC Investigator Mina Bissell at in Science At The Theater, April 23, 2012

2012-04-20T18:28:00.001-07:00

Bay Area PSOC Investigator Mina Bissell will be a featured participant in "Health Detectives: How Berkeley LAB scientists are uncovering the mysteries of disease in unlikely places," a free evening of Science at the Theater at the Berkeley Repertory Theater on Monday, April 23, 2012 from 7-9pm. The evening is sponsored by The Friends of Berkeley Lab.

World-renowned cancer researcher Mina Bissell's pioneering research on the role of the cellular microenvironment in breast cancer has changed the conversation about the disease.

Dr. Bissell and her post-doc, PSOC trainee Dr. Kandice Tanner, recently published an article on the rotation of mammary cells as they divide and order themselves to form an acini (milk-producing cell cluster in breast tissue).