Event Details
How to build a time machine
Speaker: Robert Austin, Princeton University
Department: Electrical Engineering
Location: Engineering Quadrangle J201
Date/Time: Thursday, March 14, 2013, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
One of the fundamental questions in biology is: how quickly can evolution proceed? The usual assumptions are that evolution is a very slow process, at least in bacteria on up, because of the very low mutation rates seen in most organisms. But that may not be the case if certain rules of evolution dynamics, first developed by Sewall Wright in the 30's, are exploited using 21st Century technologies. I'll present a case of rapid evolution of drug resistance in bacteria that uses some new technologies, and discuss the implications of this for evolution of drug resistance in cancer.
