Speaker: Lindi Wahl
Title: Modelling Experimental Evolution.
Affiliation: Institute for Advanced Study - Princeton
Date: Friday, December 3.
Place and Time: Room 101 - Love Building, 3:30-4:30 pm.
Refreshments: Room 204 - Love Building, 3:00 pm.

Abstract. Rapidly evolving organisms such as viruses, bacteria, and protozoa can be induced to adapt to laboratory conditions on very short, human timescales. In these experiments, the complete genotype sequence of the progenitor may be known, and the consensus genotype of the evolving population may be sampled at a number of time points. This allows for the characterization of such features as the overall rate of substitution in the genome, the rate of fitness increase, and the fitness increment conferred by individual beneficial mutations. A standard quasi-species model can be adapted to model experimental evolution, providing analytical predictions for many of the characteristic features of these experiments. A better understanding of the time course of adaptation in such rapidly evolving systems may have implications for drug therapy, the evolution of drug resistance and the emergence of cancer.