Homepage of Laurence Loewe

I am in the process of establishing the Evolutionary Systems Biology Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. If you want to join the group, please check the jobs page and contact me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Address:

Laurence Loewe
Assistant Professor 
Laboratory of Genetics and
Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Mailing address:
330 North Orchard Street,
Madison, WI, 53715, USA

Tel: +1(608)-316-4324
Fax: +1(608)-316-4604
Email: Laurence.Loewe@evolutionary-research.net

Nothing in biology
makes sense except
when properly quantified
in the light of evolution.

Evolutionary processes are at the heart of many problems that we face in our world today, ranging from antibiotics resistance evolution to species extinction. Addressing such problems requires models of the underlying causes. I aim to improve the quality of these models by quantifying evolution with increasing precision.

To this end I estimate the strength of selection in various systems, using different approaches, including the analysis of DNA sequences by population genetics methods. I also develop a new approach that builds on existing quantitative models from current systems biology and links them to potential fitness correlates to help estimate distributions of mutational effects in silico. This is an important part of what I call evolutionary systems biology, which aims to combine the strengths of evolutionary genetics and systems biology.

To facilitate my work I am developing a biologist-friendly modeling environment in the computer, which includes support for parameter estimation, automated model analysis and distributed computing (see evolution@home, the global computing project that I started).

Computational work takes a large fraction of my time. It helps me to improve models for systems biology, genome evolution, antibiotics resistance evolution and species extinction.

If you want to join the Evolutionary Systems Biology Group that I am building at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, please check out the jobs page. More about my research can be found on my research interests page and published results can be downloaded from my publications page. If you are interested in my teaching activities, visit my teaching page.

My official webpage at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is here.

My old official webpages from my time at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, include one at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, one at the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh and one at the general homepages of the University of Edinburgh.

Short CV

• 2011 Assistant Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, USA
  
• 2010 Visiting Assistant Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
  
• 2007 Postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Systems Biology Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh, UK
  
• 2006 Lecturer in Evolutionary Genetics, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK
  
• 2003 Postdoctoral research fellow, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK
• 2003 Visiting scientist, Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing, University of Heidelberg, Germany
• 2002 Dr. rer. nat., Department of Biosciences, Technical University of Munich, Germany