Evolutionary Systems Biology Group

Systems and synthetic biology are complementary disciplines which aim at understanding the design principles and multi-level properties of large cellular subsystems arising from numerous molecular interactions. While recent technological advancements has enabled the rapid collection of data on the molecular components of cells and their interactions, there is an increasing need for automated experimental and computational methods that analyse both normal cellular physiology and the phenotypic impact of mutations and environmental perturbations (e.g., drug treatments). The unicellular yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli are ideal candidates for systems and synthetic biology studies due to the availability of large and diverse sets of post-genomic information and genome engineering tools. The Unit is developing new experimental and computational approaches in the fields of genome engineering and systems biology to address fundamental problems in biology and medicine.