Michelle Wang

Biography

The Wang Group is primarily a single molecule biophysics lab based in the Department of Physics at Cornell University. Our current research focuses on the motion, dynamics, mechanisms, and regulation of molecular motors that translocate along DNA during the replication and transcription of DNA. To work with biological motors at the single molecule level, we develop and utilize state-of-the-art (and often one-of-a-kind) instruments and novel techniques. Here, we highlight a few novel experimental approaches that we have recently developed. 

Single molecule mechanical manipulations of biological molecules; high-resolution optical trapping and detection; single molecule fluorescence imaging and detection; nanophotonics and lab-on-a-chip; molecular motor mechanisms; biopolymer kinetics and dynamics; protein-DNA interactions during transcription and replication; modeling of diffusion, kinetics, and dynamics of biomolecules.