Research

I am a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, where I work on mathematical models in cell biophysics, specifically cell mechanics and cytoskeletal dynamics. My broad goal is understanding how components inside living cells push, pull, bend and flow together and how this helps cells perform tasks and exploit problem solving strategies. I work with Alex Mogilner in the Department of Mathematics and Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior.

My PhD is from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where I worked with Eric Cytrynbaum in the Institute of Applied Math and Geoff Wasteneys in the Department of Botany. Previous to that, I worked with Andrew Rutenberg in the Department of Physics at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada.

Research interests

• Actin-based cell motility
• TCR-pMHC bonds in T-cells
• Cortical microtubules in plants
• FtsZ and the bacterial Z-ring
• MreB and bacterial actins
• Reaction-diffusion patterns in cyanobacteria
• Diffusion in, and mechanical properties of, cell membranes

My Curriculum Vitae is available here, last updated April 2012.

Publications

• Mogilner, A., Allard, J., Wollman, R. Cell polarity: Quantitative modeling as a tool in cell biology. Science. 336 pp. 175-179 (2012). pdf.
• Allard, J.F.*, Dushek, O.*, Coombs, D., van der Merwe, P.A., Mechanical modulation of receptor-ligand interactions at cell-cell interfaces. Biophysical Journal. 102 pp. 1265-1273 (2012) *J.F.A and O.D. contributed equally. pdf.
• Cytrynbaum, E.N., Li, Y., Allard, J.F., Mehrabian, H., Estimating the bending modulus of a FtsZ bacterial-division protein filament. Physical Review E 85, 011902 (2012). pdf.
• Ambrose, J. C., Allard, J. F., Cytrynbaum, E. N., Wasteneys, G. O. A CLASP-modulated cell edge barrier mechanism drives cell-wide cortical microtubule organization in Arabidopsis. Nature Communications. 2:430 (2011). pdf.
• Allard, J. F., Ambrose, J. C., Wasteneys, G. O., Cytrynbaum, E. N., Mechanochemical model explains interactions between cortical microtubules in plants. Biophysical Journal. 99 pp. 1082-1090 (2010). pdf.
• Allard, J. F., Wasteneys, G. O., Cytrynbaum, E. N. Mechanisms of self-organization of cortical microtubules in plants revealed by computational simulation. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 21 pp. 278-286 (2010). pdf.
• Allard, J. F., Rutenberg, A. D. Pulling helices inside bacteria: Imperfect helices and rings. Physical Review Letters. 102, 158105 (2009). pdf.
• Allard, J. F., Cytrynbaum, E. N. Force generation by a dynamic Z-ring in Escherichia coli cell division. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA). 106(1) pp. 145-150 (2009). pdf.
• Allard, J. F., Rutenberg, A. D. Steady-state helices of the actin homolog MreB inside bacteria: Dynamics without motor proteins. Physical Review E. 76, 031916 (2007). pdf.
• Allard, J., Hill, A., Rutenberg, A. Heterocyst patterns without patterning proteins in cyanobacterial filaments. Developmental Biology. 312(1) pp. 427-434 (2007). pdf.
• Allard, J., Mathematics and biophysics of cortical microtubules in plants, PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia (2010), accessible here.
• Allard, J., Models of the actin-like MreB helix in bacteria, MSc Thesis, Dalhousie University (2007), accessible here.

Contact info

My e-mail address is jun (at) math (dot) ucdavis (dot) edu. Replace the things in brackets by what they say.

My office is in Room 3113 of the Mathematical Sciences Building at UC Davis.

My mailing address:

• Jun Allard
• Department of Mathematics,
• University of California, Davis
• One Shields Avenue,
• Davis, CA, 95616
• United States

Links

• Mogilner Lab, UC Davis
• Cytrynbaum Lab, UBC
• Mathematical Biology Group, UBC
• Rutenberg Lab, Dalhousie