Speaker: Pedram Samani, PhD
Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard
About the Seminar
Talk Title: “Systems Biology of Stress Response Across Time Scales: From Evolutionary Rescue to Spaceflight Microbial Adaptation”
Biological systems do not encounter stress as blank slates. Their response to a new perturbation depends on prior physiological state, stress exposure history, genetic background, pathway architecture, network structure, and evolutionary history. In this talk, I will describe a research program that uses microbial experimental evolution, quantitative genetics, structured biological knowledge, and multiomics-enabled platforms to study how biological history shapes future adaptive possibilities.
I will first discuss my prior work on evolutionary rescue, stress history, metabolic specialization, and quantitative stress-response architecture in yeast and fission yeast. I will then outline three connected future directions: using knowledge-graph-guided biological representation to generate testable predictions about stress-response outcomes; measuring how genetic interaction architecture changes after adaptation and focal perturbation; and studying microbial adaptation to spaceflight and microgravity as novel selective pressures. I will also discuss how this core framework can support selected platform-enabled and translational extensions into human-cell, structured tissue, drug-resistance, and exceptional-resilience systems. Together, this work asks when biological systems adapt, compensate, undergo functional collapse, or remain resilient under stress, and how those principles can inform predictive systems biology, space biology, and translational platform development.
Event Details
- Date: June 22, 2026
- Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
- Location: Fifth and Halket Classroom