Anyone who took high school biology probably remembers drawings of the human cell, with its round nucleus toward the center and bean-shaped mitochondria nearby. What they probably don't recall -- because scientists didn't know much about this until the last decade -- is that the tiny human cell, about the width of a human hair, also contains numerous smaller structures that can almost magically move from one place to another to perform a variety of cellular functions. The lab of Dr. Michael Rosen, Chair of the Department of Biophysics, was one of the earliest to study how these membraneless structures -- called biomolecular condensates -- form by separating into a distinct area, or phase, within the cellular material around them. Inside the cell, the condensates -- just like droplets of oil -- separate into their own phase from the surrounding materials. The molecules that form them are held together by multiple sticky elements and flexible tethers. Changes in biomolecular condensates have been implicated in human diseases - particularly in neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and frontal temporal lobe dementia.