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The National Science Foundation announced the award of $ 12.5 million to Arizona State University for the development of a new Institute of Biological Integration.
The award will launch an academic program, under the guidance of Michael lynch, principal researcher and director of Biodesign Center for Evolutionary Mechanisms.
Evolutionary cell biology aims to unite the fields of cell biology and the theory of evolution in a rigorous new discipline, based on three major frameworks of theoretical and quantitative biology: biochemistry, biophysics and genetics of populations.
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The new center will focus on the emerging and exciting field of evolutionary cell biology, a discipline Lynch has helped develop. He will examine the ways in which cellular evolution through life forms is guided by internal cellular constraints, based on the laws of biophysics, bioenergetics and population genetics. The intensely interdisciplinary company will draw on tools from mathematics, physics, chemistry, biophysics, structural biology, cell biology and evolution.
Lynch is joined by the co-PIs Jeremy wideman, Wayne Frasch, Kerry Geiler-Samerotte and Ke Hu, who are all researchers at the Biodesign Center for Mechanisms of Evolution.
The Institutes represent an ambitious program designed by NSF to encourage collaborative teams to study questions spanning multiple disciplines within and beyond biology.
According to the NSF: “Each institute must identify a research theme, centered around a compelling and broad biological question, ready to make inroads through collaboration between biological sub-disciplines. “
A field is born
More than a century and a half has passed since Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species”. Yet the underlying mechanisms responsible for the astonishing variety of life on Earth are only partially understood. This is especially true of evolutionary processes at the cellular level. .
Cells are fundamental units of life. Evolutionary cell biology studies cell life to help inform evolutionary processes, while using the tools and perspectives of evolutionary biology to explore how cells function and why they take the various forms they take.
Despite significant advances in fields ranging from molecular and genomic evolution to evolutionary developmental biology and ecology, studies of cellular evolution are sorely lacking. “We just jumped over the cell and yet this is where all of biology begins – at the cellular level,†Lynch said.
Evolutionary cell biology aims to unite the fields of cell biology and the theory of evolution in a rigorous new discipline, based on three major frameworks of theoretical and quantitative biology: biochemistry, biophysics and genetics of populations.
As Lynch notes, the crucial concepts of biochemistry and biophysics have been deeply under-explored in the world of evolutionary biology, while cell biologists have, for the most part, avoided considering the evolutionary pathways by which various characteristics cells may have emerged.
“We are delighted that ASU will welcome a deeply creative and interdisciplinary effort to understand the evolutionary foundations of cellular structure, function and diversity,” said Joshua LaBaer, executive director of the Biodesign Institute. “The research is poised not only to transform our understanding of cells and the theory of evolution, but also to provide crucial information to better address a range of societal issues, from antibiotic resistance to herbicides and pesticides for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases. “
An evolving research strategy
The master plan for the new center includes three main research objectives. The first major project will involve the construction of an extensive atlas of cell biology, using a range of new investigative techniques. One problem facing the field is the fact that the majority of cell biology research to date has focused on a small subset of cell diversity, particularly yeast cells and a few bacteria like E. coli.
“The idea here is to explore the cells of the entire tree of life,†said Lynch. “We want to understand what’s inside cells, how proteins are assigned to different subcellular locations, how much cells invest in different organelles, and so on. ”
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