ERC Consolidator Grant · 2024
Evolutionary robustness of cell polarity during molecular diversification.
Cells are often viewed as intricate machines, in which specific proteins work together in a tightly coordinated fashion to give rise to cellular functions. Surprisingly however, some proteins that are essential for core cellular functions in one species are absent in closely related species, while the core function itself is maintained. How this robustness is achieved, while the underlying molecular networks dramatically diversify during evolution is currently not understood. As a post-doc I showed that the polarity network in yeast can evolutionarily adapt to the loss of an important protein by losing three more proteins. My lab showed that these losses repair polarity through a collective…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.