Events

KLI Colloquia are invited research talks of about an hour followed by 30 min discussion. The talks are held in English, open to the public, and offered in hybrid format. 

 

Fall-Winter 2025-2026 KLI Colloquium Series

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5881861923?omn=85945744831
Meeting ID: 588 186 1923

 

25 Sept 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

A Dynamic Canvas Model of Butterfly and Moth Color Patterns

Richard Gawne (Nevada State Museum)

 

14 Oct 2025 (Tues) 3-4:30 PM CET

Vienna, the Laboratory of Modernity

Richard Cockett (The Economist)

 

23 Oct 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

How Darwinian is Darwinian Enough? The Case of Evolution and the Origins of Life

Ludo Schoenmakers (KLI)

 

6 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

Common Knowledge Considered as Cause and Effect of Behavioral Modernity

Ronald Planer (University of Wollongong)

 

20 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

Rates of Evolution, Time Scaling, and the Decoupling of Micro- and Macroevolution

Thomas Hansen (University of Oslo)

 

4 Dec (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

Chance, Necessity, and the Evolution of Evolvability

Cristina Villegas (KLI)

 

8 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

Embodied Rationality: Normative and Evolutionary Foundations

Enrico Petracca (KLI)

 

15 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

On Experimental Models of Developmental Plasticity and Evolutionary Novelty

Patricia Beldade (Lisbon University)

 

29 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET

O Theory Where Art Thou? The Changing Role of Theory in Theoretical Biology in the 20th Century and Beyond

Jan Baedke (Ruhr University Bochum)

Event Details

Erich Bornberg-Bauer
KLI Colloquia
Evolution in Sequence Space: How Molecules Navigate a Sheer Endless Space Through a Rugged Fitness Landscape
Erich BORNBERG-BAUER (Westfalian Wilhelms University Muenster)
2016-01-11 16:30 - 2016-01-11 16:30
KLI
Organized by KLI

Topic description:
Space is vast and apparently it would be almost hopeless to find far away stars or galaxies without the guidance of their emitted light. Sequences space, in which proteins occupy tiny patches of relatively high fitness, is even vaster. Yet evolution managed to find these lone islands, or stars, which would be represented by different proteins. So, not all is lost, but what are the driving forces which nature exploits to find quadrants with those (presumably) few and tiny areas of relatively high fitness which become amenable to selection and adaptation? We use simulations, data from comparative genomics and experimental approaches to understand the transition from one phenotpye (structure) to another, the creation of completely novel (i.e previously unseen) phenotypes and their modular rearrangements which create new functionalities. We propose that, among other forces, weak gradients of sub-optimal ("latent") functions span large areas of sequence space and help find high-fitness areas, that phenotypic mutations ("errors" during replication) help anticipate forthcoming beneficial mutations and that novel coding material is gradually incorporated into reading frames and rapidly utilised by the cellular machinery. -

 

--------------------------------------------------------- Related publications: ------------------------------------------------------ Bornberg-Bauer E and MM Alba, Curr Opn Struct Biol. 23(3):459-66, 2013.
Sikosek T et al., PNAS, 109(37):14888, 2012.
Sikosek T et al., PLoS Comput Biol 8(9):e1002659, 2012.
Bornberg-Bauer E et al., Curr Opn Struct Biol. 20(3):390-6, 2010.
Whitehead D et al., Biology Direct, 3:18, 2008.
Wroe R, et al. HFSP J. 1(1):79, 2007.
Cui Y, et al. PNAS 99(2):809, 2002.
Bornberg-Bauer E and Chan HS, PNAS 96(19):10689, 1999.
Bornberg-Bauer E, Biophys J, 73(5):2393, 1997.

 

Biographical note:
Erich Bornberg-Bauer (http://bornberglab.org/people/bornberg) studied biochemistry and maths in Vienna where he obtained his Phd in 1995 with Peter Schuster, working on theoretical aspects of RNA and protein evolution. Thereafter he worked as Assistant Professor in numerical mathematics before joining the German Cancer Reserach Centre in Heidelberg (Germany) in 1996, working as project manager in a startup IT company (EML, now HITS) in Heidelberg and becoming a Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics in Manchester (UK) in 2000. Since 2003 he is a Full Professor of Molecular Evolution and Bioinformatics at the University of Münster (Germany) and leads a group working on evolutionary and biophysical aspects of protein, RNA and genome evolution and collaborating with many experimental groups, mainly on genome analysis of social insects and deciphering signatures of ecological adaptation.