Cells are complex, autonomous machines that integrate many environmental cues to execute a desired response. Though this property makes cells versatile, it presents significant design challenges when, to treat diseases, we must alter cellular responses. To understand changes to the complex regulatory pathways that cause diseases, studies often investigate the...
This dissertation examines the construction and regulation of over-the-counter derivatives markets before and after the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. It addresses two questions: How did the market for derivatives traded outside traditional exchanges grow so large and crisis-prone with so little public regulation? And, why, given derivatives’ contribution to the...
This dissertation project is one of the first to explicitly study the theoretical and empirical relationship between public opinion and the policies of unelected administrative agencies in the United States. This research addresses two important questions: (1) given the absence of a direct electoral connection between bureaucrats and the public,...
Kinesin-1 is a motor protein that transports cargo along microtubules. Inside cells, the majority of kinesin-1 is regulated to conserve ATP and ensure its proper intracellular distribution and coordination with other motors. Regulated kinesin-1 is folded in half, and interactions between coiled-coil regions near the N-terminal enzymatically active heads and...