Crowded growth: How volume and intracellular density relate to cell growth and proliferation. (360G-Wellcome-110275_Z_15_Z)

Significant amount of research, mostly focusing on signalling processes, has been carried out to understand the regulation of cell growth and proliferation. While some biological evidence is starting to emerge that cell volume or cell mass might regulate cell growth, the role of intracellular density has been largely overlooked. This is surprising, considering that mathematical and biophysical evidence suggests that intracellular density might be a critical regulator of various growth associated processes. I will investigate how changes in these fundamental biophysical properties of a cell, cell volume and intracellular density, affect growth and proliferation in human cells. My main goals are to (1) understand how protein synthesis and degradation scales with cell size and intracellular density, (2) study how cell division rate is dependent on cell size and intracellular density, (3) investigate potential regulation of intracellular density and (4) find translational research opportun ities for the work on cell volume and intracellular density. To achieve these goals, I will utilise flow cytometry, microscopy and microfluidic mass sensor based high throughput single-cell measurements together with my recently developed analysis method, which converts heterogeneous single-cell data to systems level information.