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Biological evolution is a fascinating subject which can be fully understood only if it is approached from many different angles. In this talk I will present my personal point of view on how physics can advance our understanding of biological evolution. I will focus on three problems in the evolution of bacteria I have been working on recently. I will begin with a simple, statistical-physics model of the evolution of antibiotic resistance. This is a timely and important problem because drug-resistant, pathogenic bacteria are becoming a major health hazard. I will show that resistant bacteria can rapidly emerge in environments with spatially non-uniform drug concentration such as our bodies during antibiotic treatment. Towards the end of my talk, I will briefly discuss the evolution of metabolic networks in bacteria and biological evolution in bacterial colonies growing on solid substrates.

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Dr. Bartlomiej Waclaw, University of Edinburgh
Seminarraum Theoretische Physik
Contact: not specified