Body plan evolvability: The role of variability in gene regulatory networks.

Recent computational modeling of early fruit fly () development has characterized the degree to which gene regulation networks can be robust to natural variability. In the first few hours of development, broad spatial gradients of maternally derived transcription factors activate embryonic gap genes. These gap patterns determine the subsequent segmented insect body plan through pair-rule gene expression.

Evolution of the RNA world: From signals to codes.

The accumulated material in evolutionary biology, greatly enhanced by the achievements of modern synthetic biology, allows us to envision certain key hypothetical stages of prebiotic (chemical) evolution. This is often understood as the further evolution in the RNA World towards the RNA-protein World. It is a path towards the emergence of translation and the genetic code (I), signaling pathways with signaling molecules (II), and the appearance of RNA-based components of future gene regulatory networks (III).

Problem of Domain/Building Block Preservation in the Evolution of Biological Macromolecules and Evolutionary Computation.

Structurally and functionally isolated domains in biological macromolecular evolution, both natural and artificial, are largely similar to "schemata", building blocks (BBs), in evolutionary computation (EC). The problem of preserving in subsequent evolutionary searches the already found domains / BBs is well known and quite relevant in biology as well as in EC. Both biology and EC are seeing parallel and independent development of several approaches to identifying and preserving previously identified domains / BBs.