Soft directions in biology: what can we learn about from networks? Sharad Ramanathan, Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and of Applied Physics, Harvard University

The images of networks of proteins or neurons look really messy and are enough to put most physicists off. From staring at these networks, can we see any patterns that lead to concrete experimental predictions? In this talk, I present our experimental results in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where we can dramatically change the life cycle and environmental responses of the cell by cross wiring the underlying molecular network. Using these results, we try to answer two questions: How easy is it for a protein to acquire new function? Once a gene duplicate finds new function, how does it avoid interfering with its original function, ie., how do pathways that have been generated by duplication maintain signaling specificity? I will also present experimental results from the study of a few other networks that my lab works on.