A biophysicist’s view of a biological oscillator: the circadian clock in cyanobacteria

In this talk, I will tell the story of how an a priori unlikely oscillator—found in an organism that can divide three times faster than the clock period—became a model system for the study of circadian clocks in living matter. I will present key experimental and theoretical results that led to a molecular description of this oscillator and conclude with recent developments aimed at simplifying the clock and uncovering clock mechanisms in other prokaryotic organisms.