Evolutionary Systems Biology

Systems biology has been defined as the quantitative study of biological processes as whole systems instead of isolated parts." While the term "Systems Biology" is relatively new, the goal of developing holistic approaches to understanding biological systems has a long history. However, technological and methodological advances over the last two decades have made it possible to bring new data to bear on the study of complex biological systems.

Research in the Magwene lab is aimed at studying how genetic networks work (design principles) and how they have evolved. More specifically, our lab combines wet lab experimental techniques and the development of computational and statistical methods in order to characterize the properties of gene regulatory networks. Our goal is to identify how genetic and environmental variation affects the functioning of regulatory networks, and how this variation relates to relates to intra- and interspecific patterns of phenotypic variation.

Current Projects

Areas of current research include:

Yeast Functional Genetics and Genomics

• Variation in Sporulation Networks
• Variation in Pseudohyphal Growth Networks
• Pleiotropy and epistasis in Sporulation and Pseudohyphal Growth
• Genetic networks underling Complex Colony Morphology

Evolutionary Theory

• Evolution of Genetic Networks
• Modularity and integration in biological systems

Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

• Estimating genetic regulatory networks from large scale datasets