Information, Interpretation and Identity in the Evolution of Gene Regulation

Our goal is to understand how new biological interactions are initially set at the time of origin of molecular innovations. This allow us to study the inherent capacities of biological molecular structures to interpret and read the information contained in other biological systems, even when these systems have not co-evolved with and are foreign to these biological structures. Ultimately, this will shed light into how the identity of biological systems is defined and changed over time. We approach this general questions from the perspective of the evolution of transcriptional regulation, using a variety of functional genomic and approaches and developmental model systems such as zebrafish and flies.