This cartoon illustrates the central question of the research of E22: Is it possible to understand the selforganization and function of cells on the basis of physical principals. We concentrate on the regulation of cellular processes such as changes in cell shape, cell locomotion, and cell adhesion by elastic properties of the cell membrane and the actin based cytoskeleton.

One central aim is the development of micromechanical tools to measure the local viscoelastic moduli of the composite cell membrane and the cytoplasm and to determine intracellular transport forces generated by linear molecular motors.

A central strategy is to simultaneously develop in vitro models of the actin networks and the membrane-coupled actin cortex in order to establish correlations between the mesoscopic and macroscopic viscoelastic properties and the dynamics of single actin molecules.

The cartoon on the top illustrates the application of magnetic tweezer microrheometry which is expected to become a new tool to explore the structure and local physics of cells.