R³ Lab
Regulation • Randomness • Robustness
Washington University, St. Louis
Across biological systems, there are three main challenges: regulatory architectures must expand as new situations arise, coordinate increasingly diverse functions, and remain robust to random internal and environmental perturbations. The research program of the R³ Lab combines data from diverse regulatory systems with stochastic processes, statistical physics, evolutionary modeling, and network theory to determine which aspects of regulatory evolution are universal, and which are system-specific. We aim to develop a predictive theory of regulation that cuts across biological and societal systems, with each revealing mechanisms that are difficult to observe in each other.