Hwang Lab

Assembling biology one molecule at a time

Research

We use multidisciplinary techniques combining single-molecule to cell imaging, biochemistry and synthetic biology to study the molecular mechanisms of chromosome organization and bacterial cell division. We are interested in understanding how bacteria, despite their small size and lack of obvious cytoskeleton, are able to spatially organize genomic DNA and proteins to specific locations in the cell. These bacterial positioning systems form distinctive patterns within the cells, and are involved in important cellular functions such as chromosome segregation, cell division and motility.