Quake Lab Mission

Physics has a great tradition of precision measurement, whose origin is widely credited to Galileo. The lesson that has been learned time and time again is that by measuring fundamental physical phenomena with increasing precision, one can make amazing discoveries and even sometimes stumble across new laws of nature. My research seeks to bring this tradition to biology. We have improved biological measurement techniques by creating devices that allow us to take advantage of the unusual physics of fluids in small volumes, which sometimes lend themselves to experiments which have no benchtop analogue. Through refinement of such precision measurement we have developed ultra high throughput DNA sequencing technology.

My work in single molecule biophysics led to the first demonstration of single molecule sequencing, and my research in this field has led me to become deeply involved in human genetics, immunology, and the development of new clinical diagnostics. My laboratory is located on the 3rd floor of the Clark Center which is an interdisciplinary hub bringing together scientists from the diverse fields of biology, biochemistry, structural biology, statistics and engineering to foster a collaborative atmosphere.