The living cell inspires scientists from many disciplines, who admire both its exquisite molecular machines and their coordination into a self-regulating and self-perpetuating factory. The focus of study in our lab derives from intracellular transport and spatial organization. This involves largely the cytoskeleton, particularly microtubules and actin filaments with their associated motor proteins. Another major cellular subsystem is that of nucleocytoplasmic transport. The nuclear pores act as molecular sorters in cell, pumping proteins or RNAs into or out of the nucleus. As a multi-disciplinary group we look at these issues from points of view from physics, chemistry, and biology. Currently our most active research directions are: investigating nuclear transport and nuclear pore assembly using a cell-free model based on extracts of Xenopus laevis eggs chemical mimicry of the nucleocytoplasmic transport mechanism understanding cellular processes co-opted during gene transfer by Agrobacterium tumefaciens developments in three-dimensional imaging and particle tracking Go to the (members only) Elbaum Lab wiki.