E-mail:
Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
B.S, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 1991
M.S., Tel Aviv University, Israel, 1997
Ph.D., Tel Aviv University, Israel, 2001
Postdoc, Princeton University, NJ, 2001-2006
Using physical principles to understand living systems
In our lab, we examine the way living cells process information from their environment and make decisions based on that information. Our aim is to form a quantitative narrative for the dynamics of cellular decision-making and unveil simple principles that underlie such processes. Our first model system is the bacterium E. coli and its virus, phage lambda. We examine their complex interaction at the level of individual events in space and time. More recently, we have begun to extend our studies to higher organisms.
Work in the lab involves a set of skills broader than what is generally mastered within a single discipline, including the techniques of molecular- and cell biology; live single-cell microscopy for making quantitative measurements; and data analysis using the engineer’s toolbox of signal- and image processing; all accompanied by the theoretical tools of dynamical systems theory, stochastic processes, non-equilibrium phenomena and more. The practice of modern in vivo biology, combined with the intellectual effort of a quantitative approach, will contribute significantly to a young scientist’s training experience, better preparing them for the future world of “Systems Biology”.
Selected Publications
Golding I, Cox EC (2004) RNA dynamics in live E. coli cells. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 101:11310-11315.
Golding I, Paulsson J, Zawilski SM, Cox EC (2005) Real-time kinetics of gene activity in individual bacteria. Cell 123:1025-1036.
Golding I, Cox EC (2006) Eukaryotic transcription: what does it mean for a gene to be ‘on’? Current Biology 16:R371-R373.
Golding I, Cox EC (2006) Physical nature of bacterial cytoplasm. Physical Review Letters 96:098-102.
Golding I, Cox EC (2006) Protein synthesis molecule by molecule. Genome Biology 7:221.
Zeng L, Skinner SO, Zong C, Sippy J, Feiss M, Golding I (2010) Decision making at a subcellular level determines the outcome of bacteriophage infection. Cell 141:682-691.
Zong C, So LH, Sepúlveda LA, Skinner SO, Golding I (2010) Lysogen stability is determined by the frequency of activity bursts from the fate-determining gene. Molecular Systems Biology 6:440.
Golding I (2011) Decision making in living cells: lessons from a simple system. Annual Review of Biophysics 40:63-80.
Rothenberg E, Sepúlveda LA, Skinner SO, Zeng L, Selvin PR, Golding I (2011) Single-virus tracking reveals a spatial receptor-dependent search mechanism. Biophysical Journal 100:2875-2882.
So LH, Ghosh A, Zong C, Sepúlveda LA, Segev R, Golding I (2011) General properties of transcriptional time series in Escherichia coli. Nature Genetics 43:554-560.
Zeng L, Golding I (2011) Following cell-fate in E. coli after infection by phage lambda. Journal of Visualized Experiments 56:3363.
Contact Information
Ido Golding, Ph.D.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Baylor College of Medicine
One Baylor Plaza 344E
Houston, Texas 77030, U.S.A.
Lab Website
Tel: (713) 798-4193
Fax: (713) 798-9438
E-mail: