A living system, like any complex entity, is more than the sum of its parts. It can be as simple as a virus or as complex as an ecosystem. Researchers at WID aspire to gain an understanding of how such systems function, as well as how they adapt to and shape their environments over different time scales.
An interdisciplinary group of engineers, computer scientists, physicists, and evolutionary biologists take a multi-pronged approach to understanding living systems. We develop and combine experimental and computational methods to study diverse problems, ranging from interactions between organisms (e.g., between hosts and pathogens, and within diverse microbial communities) and interaction networks within organisms (e.g., regulatory and metabolic interactions). A common theme to complex biological systems research at WID is to view these systems through the lens of evolution.
By combing the ocean for antimicrobials, scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered a new antifungal compound that efficiently targets multi-drug-resistant strains of deadly fungi without toxic side effects in mice. WID postdoc Marc Chevrette is part of the team that published the finding in Science.
A cross-institutional team including WID’s John Yin is creating a computational model to guide the development of bladder therapeutics.
Development of computational methods for inference and analysis of biological networks
Making inferences on characteristics of ancestral eukaryotes using phylogenetic methods
Mechanisms of viral recombination and production of atypical viral particles
Virus-host interactions and proofreading mechanisms in coronaviruses
Graduate Assistant
Statistical models that reconstruct the interaction networks among microbes and experimental design
Assistant professor of plant pathology Claudia Solís-Lemus is a recipient of funding from the Department of Energy to develop statistical theory and tools for computational biology.
Lena Vincent is a graduate student in David Baum’s lab at WID. She studies the origin of life by searching for life-like behaviors in systems of molecules.
A team of UW-Madison researchers led by Discovery Fellow Wendy Crone has created a powerful tool to help assess what experimental factors help to produce stem cell-generated cardiomyocytes that behave like adult heart cells.
WID’s Shaoqin “Sarah” Gong is a collaborator on a paper published in Nature Communications in which UW engineers constructed a functional microwave amplifier circuit on a substrate of cellulose nanofibril paper, a wood product.
John Yin is working to find out whether “junk” particles produced by mouse viruses exist in human coronaviruses, and whether they may be the key to understanding how the viruses spread and interact with host cells.
John Yin has received a National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant and an Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) to work on projects related to human coronaviruses.
WID’s John Yin, who uses experimental and computational methods to understand how viruses spread, is working on several projects that could have a direct bearing on COVID-19.
Focusing on the researches of small-diameter vascular grafts and rapid endothelialization
WID Director Jo Handelsman shared a conversation on Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda and on WUWM about soil and microbes.
WID researchers have developed a computational tool that can accurately predict the three-dimensional interactions between regions of human chromosomes.
Discovery Fellow David Baum leads a team that has cultivated lifelike chemical reactions while pioneering a new strategy for studying the origin of life.
Xuehua Zhong’s close study of an ordinary plant’s cellular mechanisms could lead to big advances in agriculture and medicine. Zhong is featured in Grow magazine.
