(*) Summary: Metabolic networks perform some of the most fundamental functions in living cells, including energy transduction and building block biosynthesis. Yet, it is still a mystery how these complex biochemical networks emerged, and how they reached their current structure. I will present simplified mathematical models, which can provide insight into the potential principles governing the emergence and evolution of metabolism and of living systems.
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(**) Dr. Daniel Segre' is Assistant Professor in the Bioinformatics Graduate Program, at the Department of Biology, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University.
He began his education at the University of Trieste, where he obtained a Physics degree in 1994. He went on to his M.Sc. at the at the Department of Molecular Genetics of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel. His Life-Science Ph.D. was granted in the year 2002. His postdoctoral work during the years 2001-2004 was at the Harvard Medical School, in the Department of Genetics and Computational Biology. His present position has been held since the year 2005.
Dr. Segre has been a Visiting Scholar at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Bioscience Division. He has also been Associate Editor of The Public Library of Science Computational Biology, a publication that features works of exceptional significance for our further understanding of living systems at all scales-from molecules and cells to ecosystems-through the application of computational methods.
His remarkable early research in astrobiology, namely on the Lipid World, was done at Weizmann in collaboration with Professor Doron Lancet. Some of this work has already been presented at the Trieste Conferences of Astrobiology that were held at the ICTP. He has also recently lectured at the ICTP School and Conference: From Biological Networks to Cellular Function.