IRFP: Robustness, Evolvability, and Reproductive Isolation in the Signal-Integration Space of Gene Regulatory Networks

国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。项目？S奖提供了联合研究的机会，以及利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和环境条件的机会。该奖项将支持约书亚·L·佩恩博士与瑞士苏黎世大学的安德烈亚斯·瓦格纳博士合作的为期24个月的研究奖学金。活体生物展示了两个看似自相矛盾的特性：它们对基因变化很健壮，但高度进化。这些特性似乎相互矛盾，因为前者要求基因改变保持表型不变，而后者要求这些改变用于探索新的表型。尽管存在这种明显的矛盾，但对生命系统的几项经验分析，特别是在分子水平上的分析，揭示了健壮性往往有助于进化。这个项目使用遗传调控的计算模型来描述当基因改变影响顺式调控区域中编码的信号整合逻辑时，基因调控网络中稳健性和进化性之间的关系。由于进化性与新表型的形成密切相关，该项目还关注了进化性与生殖隔离的进化之间的关系，这是进化生物学中的一个核心主题。该奖项将深入了解生物系统中稳定性和进化性之间的关系，并将为参与该项目的几名本科生和研究生提供宝贵的跨学科研究经验，这将使国际科学界普遍受益。此外，佩恩博士还将在一个备受尊敬的外国实验室获得经验，这将带来跨越国界的持续合作，并拓宽科学努力的视角。

The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program?s awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and environmental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Joshua L. Payne to work with Dr. Andreas Wagner at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.Living organisms exhibit two seemingly paradoxical properties: They are robust to genetic change, yet highly evolvable. These properties appear contradictory because the former requires that genetic alterations leave the phenotype intact, while the latter requires these alterations to be used for the exploration of new phenotypes. Despite this apparent contradiction, several empirical analyses of living systems, particularly at the molecular scale, have revealed that robustness often facilitates evolvability. This project uses computational models of genetic regulation to characterize the relationship between robustness and evolvability in gene regulatory networks when genetic alterations affect the signal-integration logic encoded in cis-regulatory regions. As evolvability is intimately tied to the formation of new phenotypes, this project also focuses on the relationship between evolvability and the evolution of reproductive isolation, a topic of central importance in evolutionary biology.This award will shed insight into the relationship between robustness and evolvability in biological systems and will provide valuable interdisciplinary research experience to several undergraduate and graduate students involved in the project, which will benefit the international scientific community at large. In addition, Dr. Payne will gain experience in a highly regarded foreign laboratory, which will lead to sustained collaborations that cross national boundaries and a broadened perspective of the scientific endeavor.