The Collaborative Research Center 1310 (“Predictability in Evolution”), in which Prof. Dr. Dario R. Valenzano and Dr. H. Melike Dönertas are involved, has been successfully extended for its third phase at the end of November 2025.
The Collaborative Research Center 1310 (“Predictability in Evolution”), involving Prof. Dr. Dario R. Valenzano and Dr. H. Melike Dönertaş, has been successfully extended into its third funding phase as of the end of November 2025.
Traditional evolutionary biology deals with the reconstruction of past processes and relationship between species over long periods of time. But is it possible to predict ways and outcomes of future evolutionary processes at least for a short timespan?
We investigate this question using rapidly evolving systems such as microbes in the laboratory, viruses, immune systems, and cancer cells. We develop methods to predict important processes in these systems, like the evolution of drug-resistances and antigenicity, the evolution of antibodies in immune systems, and the co-evolution of pathogens and their host organisms. To predict evolution, genetic, phenotypic, and environmental changes need to be linked with causal and reproducible influences on function and fitness of organisms. To describe such effects, we experimentally and theoretically analyze massive parallel and time-resolved evolutionary processes.