Latest Happenings at the Oden Institute

Charles A. Taylor, who holds a joing appointment between the Oden Institute and Dell Medical School, has been elected as a Corresponding Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious scientific societies. He is among 13 scholars elected this year and the only American among the newly elected members.

The studio builds startups from research by addressing real-world needs with ventures that benefit society, the economy, and future industries.

New research shows that molecules moving inside crowded cells do not necessarily diffuse faster when the cellular environment fluctuates. Dmitrii Makarov and Peter Sollich found that even when molecular “traps” in a rough energy landscape rapidly change, the overall diffusion rate can remain the same as if the landscape were frozen, due to reciprocal interactions between the particle and its environment governed by detailed balance. Their findings suggest that classic diffusion models remain valid but may underestimate how rough cellular environments truly are.