1. Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Public Health​​

I am interested pediatric infectious diseases, their spread, and the effects of "seasonal" (non life-threatening) infections on both the pediatric population and their caregivers. We hypothesize that pediatric care-giving burden is heavily underestimated, and the effects of caring for sick children have a profound effect on the workforce and the economy, particularly when considering burdens in lower socio-economic classes and traditionally disadvantaged and disfranchised groups. 

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2. Origins of Complexity and Information Gain in Biological Systems​

The evolution of multicellular, higher order forms from a few organic molecules in primordial soup is one of the most important, and, as yet, unanswered questions in the sciences. From a thermodynamic (biophysical) systems perspective, this is a remarkable achievement; evolution appears to have found ways to completely corral and subdue entropy, while generating incredible complexity. To better understand the mechanisms behind complexity development, we have proposed a new model – an agent-based Biophysical Model of Adaptive Evolution (BMAE) – that will focus on elucidating the role played by evolutionary processes like exaptation to spur second-order phase transitions within biological systems, particularly protein interaction networks. Through this model, we will test assumptions regarding complexity that may arise from new interactions between proteins, allowing new biochemical pathways to form, which in turn lead to physiological and morphological effects.  Additionally, we plan to undertake simple wet-lab experiments designed to test other key assumptions, such as function-uptake through exposure to novel protein domains, addition of interactors to existing interaction networks and the role of horizontal gene transfer in facilitating network enlargement. Our emphasis on examining physical phenomena makes our project quite distinct from other contemporary approaches. We are interested in using both quantitative and wet approaches to discover first principles of biological complexity, while also using synthetic biology approaches to modify and even “design” new systems if possible.