Cells make fate decisions in response to dynamic environmental and pathological stimuli as well as cell-to-cell communications. Recent technological breakthroughs have enabled to gather data in previously unthinkable quantities at single cell level, starting to suggest that cell fate decision is much more complex, dynamic, and stochastic than previously recognized. Multiscale interactions, sometimes through cell-cell […]

Single-cell genomics is a catch phrase for numerous new technologies and methods that allow for probing cells at genome scale. I will explain what this means and describe some examples that illustrate the excitement in this new domain. While single-cell genomics technologies draw on methods from a variety of disciplines such asf biology, chemistry and […]

The beauty of mathematics is often encountered when one discovers that two apparently very different phenomena actually share a common origin. I will discuss such a surprising connection between two apparently unrelated mathematical objects. One is purely combinatorial: the number of ways one can drive from USC to the Claremont Colleges. The other one is […]

I plan to explain how a purely algebraic technique involving Lie Algebra Cohomology can be used to construct standard characteristic classes of vector bundles and foliations (in fact, it could be tweaked to give most characteristic classes in differential and complex geometry).