Markus Basan

Harvard Medical School

Systems Biology Department

200 Longwood Ave

Alpert 536

Boston, MA 02115

Tel:

Email: markus@hms.harvard.edu

Research Summary:

In our lab, we try to tackle these challenges by identifying phenotypic patterns that can guide us in decoding the underlying molecular mechanisms and principles, which govern the behavior of complex biological systems. Our approach relies on the close coordination and mutual feedback between experimental and theoretical efforts and we combine careful characterization of physiology, genetic perturbations, omics technology and theoretical models.

Fundamental biological questions that we are interested in include the role of metabolic strategies during growth and adaptation, tradeoffs between competing evolutionary objectives of microorganisms and how cells achieve homeostasis of cell size, cell number and cellular composition, as well as the breakdown of these mechanisms in disease. We use the well-characterized model organisms Escherichia coli and Drosophila melanogaster to address such questions.