© DUSTIN FENSTERMACHERThose who want to study living systems generally major in biology. But Thomas Gregor’s path first took him through math and physics. Only after completing a master’s degree in theoretical physics at the University of Geneva did Gregor return to his core interest: understanding the fundamentals of how life works.
“Thomas started as a theorist, but has transformed into a scientist who pushes our ability to measure the biological system he studies farther than anyone,” says one of Gregor’s graduate advisors, Princeton University theoretical physicist William Bialek. METHODS: That biological system is the Drosophila embryo, introduced to Gregor by another of his PhD advisors at Princeton, Eric Wieschaus, a developmental biologist. Gregor recognized that the biology of early fly embryos was qualitatively well understood, but was ripe for a thorough investigation from a physical perspective. Under the guidance of three advisors spanning theoretical physics, developmental biology, and neuroscience, Gregor used the fly embryo to understand the physics of how flies develop at the molecular level. He demonstrated that, contrary to previous studies, the concentration of ...
