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About the Department of Systems Biology

One of the defining features of living organisms is their astonishing complexity. Even seemingly simple single cell organisms such as microbes display exceedingly complex behaviors, determined by intricate molecular networks in which large numbers of molecular components, pathways and chemical reactions act together. These behaviors have fascinated scientists for decades and include development, response to pathogenic and environmental insults and interactions with other organisms. Understanding how complexity of living systems arises and coordinates cellular function and pathologies continues to be one of the principal goals of biomedical research today. Read more about how the Department of Systems Biology tackles these questions on our Research and About pages.



The Department of Systems Biology (DSB) studies how biological complexity can be derived and understood from the interplay between individual components and processes that make up living organisms.

For information about our Graduate and Summer Undergraduate Programs as well as the application process, please see our Education Page.


DSB Spotlight

A new paper published in npj Antimicrobials and Resistance from the Mitchell Lab finds that it is possible to predict whether a given bacteria is capable of inactivating an antimicrobial drug based on growth curve shapes when the bacteria is grown at subinhibitory antimicrobial concentrations. Learn more about this work, highlights from the experimental journey and the first author Carmen Li in this Q&A.

Read the paper:

Predicting drug inactivation by changes in bacterial growth dynamics

ArshiaRayna

A new paper published in Cell from the Lee lab finds an unexpected cell death pathway activated upon RNA Pol II inhibition. Learn more about this work, highlights from the experimental journey and the first author Nick Harper in this Q&A.

Read the paper:

RNA Pol II inhibition activates cell death independently from the loss of transcription 

 

Additional news from the DSB

DSB Seminar Series
All seminars will take place at 11am in AS6-2072, unless otherwise noted
Edward Chouchani, PhD
Professor, Harvard Medical School
"Mass spectrometry and machine learning uncovers a cysteine sensing protein
complex"
September 18, 2025
Host - Marian Walhout
 
Cammie Lesser, MD,PhD
Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
October 9, 2025
Host - Rob Brewster
 
Galit Lahav, PhD
Professor, Harvard Medical School
October 17, 2025 
Host - Amir Mitchell
 
Jen Oyler-Yaniv, PhD
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
October 23, 2025
Host - Mike Lee

 


Recent Publications

Predicting drug inactivation by changes in bacterial growth dynamics

npj Antimicrobials and Resistance. 2025 Sept 9
Carmen Li, Serkan Sayin, Ethan Hau Chian Chang, Amir Mitchell

RNA Pol II inhibition activates cell death independently from the loss of transcription

Cell. 2025 Aug 15
Nicholas W. Harper, Gavin A. Birdsall, Megan E. Honeywell, Kelly M. Ward, Athma A. Pai, Michael J. Lee

Worm Perturb-Seq: massively parallel whole-animal RNAi and RNA-seq

Nature Communications. 2025 May 23
Hefei Zhang, Xuhang Li, Dongyuan Song, Onur Yukselen, Shivani Nanda, Alper Kucukaral, Jingyi Jessica Li, Manuel Garber, Albertha J.M. Walhout

 

Aneuploidy generates enhanced nucleotide dependency and sensitivity to metabolic perturbation

Genes & Development. 2025 May 5
Rayna Y. Magesh, Arshia N. Kaur, Faith N. Keller, Abdulrazak Frederick, Tenzin Tseyang, John A. Haley, Alejandra M. Rivera-Nieves, Anthony C. Liang, David A. Guertin, Jessica B. Spinelli, Stephen J. Elledge, Emma V. Watson

Rules of engagement for condensins and cohesins guide mitotic chromosome formation

Follow the rules in this summary video: Rules of Engagement
Science. 2025 April 11
Kumiko Samejima, Johan H. Gibcus, Itaru Samejima, Alison J. Beckett, Nina Puǎčeková, Maria Alba Abad, Christos Spanos, Bethan Medina-Pritchard, James R. Paulson, Linfeng Xie, A. Arockia Jeyaprakash, Ian A. Prior, Leonid A. Mirny, Job Dekker, Anton Goloborodko, William C. Earnshaw

Genetic suppression interactions are highly conserved across genetically diverse yeast isolates

G3. 2025 March 3
Claire Paltenghi, Jolanda van Leeuwen

Systems-level design principles of metabolic rewiring in an animal

Nature. 2025 February 26
Xuhang Li, Hefei Zhang, Thomas Hodder, Wen Wang, Chad L. Myers, L. Safak Yilmaz, Albertha J.M. Walhout

A systems-level, semiquantitative landscape of metabolic flux in C. elegans

Nature. 2025 February 26
Hefei Zhang, Xuhang Li, L. Tenzin Tseyang, Gabrielle E. Giese, Hui Wang, Bo Yao, Jingyan Zhang, Rachel L. Neve, Elizabeth A. Shank, Jessica B. Spinelli, L. Safak Yilmaz, Albertha J.M. Walhout

Enhanced flux potential analysis links changes in enzyme expression to metabolic flux

Molecular Systems Biology. 2025 February 17
Xuhang Li, Albertha J.M. Walhout, L. Safak Yilmaz

A systematic survey of TF function in E. coli suggests RNAP stabilization is a prevalent strategy for both repressors and activators

Nucleic Acids Research. 2025 February 8
Sunil Guharajan, Vinuselvi Parisutham, Robert C Brewster