ISB News

Adaptive Prediction of Yeast

New Study on How Microbes Learn to Predict the Future

In a study published in Genome Biology and Evolution, researchers at Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) designed an experiment to evolve novel adaptive prediction capability in yeast by repetitively exposing it to caffeine, followed by a toxin. Remarkably, the yeast cells learned the structure of this novel environmental pattern within as few as 50 generations to use caffeine as a cue for anticipating and mitigating lethal effects of the toxin.

Greater Good: Successful High School Interns

Every summer, ISB welcomes a group of high school interns, hosted through our Systems Education Experiences program. ISB is proud of its collaborative and cross-disciplinary culture and we work hard to nurture an environment that allows our staff to achieve at a high level. It was especially gratifying to get this comment from one of our interns, who had just completed her time here: “At ISB, I witnessed collaboration that…

ISB in Antarctica

There have been many stories in the news about research projects in Antarctica. Most projects are related to the climate and environment, or to how organisms survive in such extreme conditions. On Feb. 6, for example, the New York Times published a report about the Wissard (Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling) project, which involves looking for a microbial community in the lake located half a mile under the…