C. Brandon Ogbunu
@cbo
Scientist + Humanist + Pugilist. "Tip your hat; pop the chain; short Joe Louis; then wipe his nose with the hook. It's that simple." (c) Brother Naazim Richardson
2/2 The fitness seascape elaboration has invented to consider how contexts of various sort shape the topography of fitness landscapes. In a new study, we find that context meaningfully shapes molecular evolution at every scale we studied, but the pattern depends on scale and system.
🚨NEW PAPER 🚨 "Deconstructing empirical fitness seascapes across scales of granularity" published in #G3 (@genetics-gsa.bsky.social) 1/2 The fitness landscape has been among the most influential instruments in evolutionary theory for nearly a century. But we often treat them as fixed and static.
3/3 This was also (partly) an exercise in the history of science, where one examines the historical roots of an important idea, and considers its broader lessons. Mostly importantly, it was an opportunity to highlight the power of a single study to influence a generation of scientists.
2/3 This perspective felt like going back to graduate school: I had to re-engage an entire body of literature + consider the various ways that the study of empirical fitness landscapes has implications for various fields: theoretical biology, biomedicine, and engineering of various kinds.
2/2 We identify the existence, sort of epistasis present (sign, intergenic vs intragenic, etc), across different loci and phenotypes (e.g., drug resistance). The results are peculiar to system, but highlight both the widespread nature of epistasis, and the detection biases that shape our picture.
1/2 🚨New paper In a collab b/w my group + @nathangrubaugh.bsky.social, led by a fabulous doctoral student, we synthesize the data on epistasis across several viral pathogen systems (e.g., influenza, HIV, SARS-CoV-2, tobacco etch virus, etc). academic.oup.com/ve/article/1...
3/5: Though the Bubble was built by an institution w/ nearly infinite resources (The NBA), we argue it can inspire a new strategy that can be broadly applied for infection control. To do this, we use concepts in theoretical disease ecology, agent-based simulations, + some analytical tools.
This classic dropped 30 years ago Young folk can’t even sit through a full listen, let alone appreciate it, poor babies
4/5 Epistasis: In the dinosaur "de-extinction" project, the scientists overlook epistasis, the non-additive interactions among genes and mutations. As a general rule, genome engineering efforts can be undermined by these non-additive, surprising interactions.
3/5 Pleiotropy: Also, the novel’s scientists may have overlooked pleiotropy, the tendency of a single gene to affect multiple traits. Edit one locus for appearance, and you may alter behavior, physiology, or fitness. Even in fiction, we learn how genes operate in entangled, nonlinear systems.
2/5 Plasticity: The novel highlights the concept of plasticity, or the capacity of genotypes to produce different phenotypes across environments. The fictional project fails not (only) because of bad cloning, but from the mismatch between organism + environment.
1/5 🦖 Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (1990) turns 35 in November. In a new preprint, I argue that it was a prescient meditation on evolutionary genetics, complexity, & control. I also examine analogous efforts of today (e.g. “de-extinction.") Select points below: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
1/5 Over the last 12 months, I've had the pleasure of serving as a the author of @undark.org 's "Selective Pressure" column, where I examine the intersection between science and culture. A few highlights: undark.org/group/select...
4/5 The results suggest that political identity is complex, and simple narratives for why people vote the way they do are missing something essential. The 2024 election (the object of present/future analysis) further reflects this.* * www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
3/5 We find that nearly 40% of cities deviate from the narrative. For example, cities like Knoxville and Spokane voted Republican with lower-than-expected levels of implicit racial bias, In contrast, Chicago, Albany, and Minneapolis (Democratic cities) exhibited higher-than-expected bias levels.
1/5 In a comment published in NPJ Complexity, SFI @sfiscience.bsky.social post-doc Andrew Stier and I ask a critical question: "What is the relationship between voting patterns in American cities and implicit racial bias?" We find that the story is...complicated. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
25 Years ago, one of the greatest artists to ever live went to the essence. Rest in Power, Christopher Lee Rios (1971 - 2000) "Dead-in-the middle-of-little-Italy-little-did-we-know-that-we-riddled-two-middlemen-who didn't-do-diddly"
From our 2023 paper (Klein et al.), not about genomics. The statement wasn't very hard to write or include. And it is far from ideal -- it's the least one can do. A technical consideration.