Biophysicist Daniel Needleman wins prestigious NSF CAREER award

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - July 29, 2009 - Daniel Needleman, Assistant Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Center for Systems Biology, has won a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the Division of Physics (Physics of Living Systems) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The honor is considered one of the most prestigious for up-and-coming researchers in science and engineering.

Needleman uses quantitative experimental techniques to study how the cooperative behaviors of molecules give rise to the architecture and dynamics of self-organizing sub-cellular structures.

His long-term goal is to use the knowledge of sub-cellular structures to quantitatively predict biological behaviors and to determine if there are general principles that govern these non-equilibrium steady-state systems.

The $800,000 CAREER Award will support his research on physical aspects of spindle self-organization. In particular, he will use the grant to perform quantitative experiments to study the metaphase spindle, which is responsible for the accurate segregation of chromosomes during cell division.

The goal of his NSF-funded project is to develop and test general theories of cytoskeletal organization and to obtain an understanding of the architecture and dynamics of a particular non-equilibrium, steady-state biological structure: the metaphase spindle.

Needleman plans to employ fluorescence and polarized light microscopy, in conjunction with magnetic tweezers and biochemical approaches, to study the spindle's internal fluctuations, structure, and response to perturbations. Results of these quantitative experiments will be carefully compared with predictions from coarse-grained models of cytoskeletal behavior.

By helping to elucidate general principles of non-equilibrium living matter, the research has important implications for physics. In addition, the findings may also influence cell biology, as Needleman is attempting to provide a basis to understand the architecture and dynamics of the metaphase spindle. The spindle is an essential organelle whose components are becoming increasingly well studied. Its large-length-scale behaviors, however, remain mysterious.

Needleman received his Ph.D. in Physics from University of California, Santa Barbara and his B.A. in Physics from Brandeis University. He was a postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, Department of Systems Biology.

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About the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from junior faculty members at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities to apply.