Jeff Gelles

Gelles' laboratory pioneered the use of single-molecule optical methods to study the molecular machines underlying the central processes of biology. They published the first nanometer-scale tracking studies of a motor enzyme and pioneered single-molecule studies of DNA transcription, transcription factor-DNA interactions, site-specific DNA recombination, and pre-messenger RNA splicing. Gelles and collaborators continue to develop new single-molecule methods and instrumentation and to use these tools to gain insight into mechanism of fundamental biological processes, particularly: 1) the function of molecular machines essential to gene expression and its regulation; 2) the molecular bases for the regulation and organization of the actin and microtubule cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells.