Yves Brun

Systems Biology/Microbiology Faculty Search

Department of Biology

Indiana University

Jordan Hall 142

1001 E 3rd St

Bloomington, IN. 47405-7005

Dear Members of the Search Committee:

I have known Dr. Yi Jiang since 2002 when I visited her group at Los Alamos National Laboratory and began to collaborate with her on the cellular aggregation of myxobacterial cells. The collaboration worked as follows. I presented to Dr. Jiang a qualitative scheme of aggregation based on our microscopical observations. She raised many questions to root out the essential physical biological phenomena in scheme. She then built a mathmathical model of aggregation with her graduate student Maria Kiskowski. To refine the model, she showed me its results at several stages, and we had several telephone conversations and e-mail exchanges. Together, we wrote the paper “Directing myxobacterial aggregation by cell contact signals: a three dimensional model” for the PNAS 102, 11308-11312 (2005). Again, the writing involved much give and take between Dr. Jiang, Dr Mark Alber and me to be certain that the mathematics represented the biology accurately. This paper is important because it demonstrates that cellular aggregation can be produced by cell contact signals. Chemotaxis is not required as had previously been thought.

Dr. Jiang is an excellent theoretical physicist. Nevertheless she is motivated to interact with experimental biologists. She knows a substantial amount of biology and has a remarkable ability to communicate with experimental biologists. I recommend her strongly.

Sincerely,

Dale Kaiser

Professor of Biochemistry

and of Developmental Biology