We are a new research group within the School of Biology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Thiruvananthapuram.

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We address both how- and why- questions on a few broad themes:
 

1. The ecological consequences of environmentally induced multicellularity
2. The origin of cell differentiation in lineages with newly evolved multicellularity

3. The theoretical foundations of evolutionary transitions in individuality

4. The evolution of phenotypic plasticity at multiple levels of biological organization

5. Bacteria-bacteriophage co-evolution in the light of defense handicaps

We primarily work with bacterial and bacteriophage populations and subject them to experimental evolution to achieve our goals. We analyze the evolutionary outcomes and paths using combinations of fitness assays, phenotypic measurements and genomics (sometimes complemented by transcriptomics and proteomics too). For some of our projects, we also model our evolving systems using individual-based simulations and/or analytical equations.

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Please refer to the Research page for more details.

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