Ricard Solé

Group website

Research Outline

The ICREA-Complex Systems Lab is formed by an interdisciplinary team that explores the evolution of complex systems, both natural and artificial, in search of their common laws of organization. We do both theoretical and experimental work, working in close collaboration with the Santa Fe Institute (USA). Using methods from statistical physics, synthetic/systems biology and network theory, we study the origins and evolution of complex systems, the boundaries of such complexity and how to break them.

 

 

Current Projects 

  • Terraforming the biosphere

We explore the potential scenarios for the development of synthetic living motifs capable of engineering ecosystem responses in order to avoid catastrophic tipping points. Moreover, we also study potential no-living reactions that could contribute to make industrial metabolism to become more circular.

 

  • Major synthetic transitions

We develop a theoretical framework seeking to understand the origins of innovations in biological systems based on their synthetic counterparts. This includes synthetic biology models of multicellularity or machine learning versions of evolved cognition or language.

 

  • Liquid brains

We are exploring the landscape of computation/information processing capacities of cognitive networks were agents depart from the neuronal picture. This includes social insects, immune systems, microbiomes or robotic swarms.  

 

  • Evolution of complexity: stable and unstable

This theoretical research program involves the use of statistical physics and mathematical modelling of evolutionary processes that can trigger the emergence of complexity and open-ended evolution. This includes the study of critical states in both cancer and RNA viruses.

 

Team during 2019-20

PhD students: Guim Aguadé, Adriano Bonforti, Aina Ollé, Jordi Piñero, Blai Vidiella, Victor Maull

Postdocs: Núria Conde, Raúl Montañez, Miguel Berdugo

Technicians: Arianna Bruguera

 

Selected publications 

Aguadé-Gorgorió G, Solé R (2020) Tumour neoantigen heterogeneity thresholds provide a time window for combination immunotherapy. J R Soc Interface. 2020 Oct;17(171):20200736. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2020.0736. Epub 2020 Oct 28.PMID: 33109023

 

Vidiella B, Sardanyés J, Solé RV (2020) Synthetic soil crusts against green-desert transitions: a spatial model. R Soc Open Sci. 2020 Aug 26;7(8):200161. doi: 10.1098/rsos.200161. eCollection 2020 Aug.PMID: 32968506 

 

Berdugo M, Delgado-Baquerizo M, Soliveres S, Hernández-Clemente R, Zhao Y, Gaitán JJ, Gross N, Saiz H, Maire V, Lehmann A, Rillig MC, Solé RV, Maestre FT (2020) Global ecosystem thresholds driven by aridity. Science. 2020 Feb 14;367(6479):787-790. doi: 10.1126/science.aay5958.PMID: 32054762


Conde-Pueyo N, Vidiella B, Sardanyés J, Berdugo M, Maestre FT, De Lorenzo V, Solé R (2020) Synthetic Biology for Terraformation Lessons from Mars, Earth, and the Microbiome. Life (Basel). 2020 Feb 9;10(2):14. doi: 10.3390/life10020014.PMID: 32050455 

 

Piñero J, Solé R (2019) Statistical physics of liquid brains. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2019 Jun 10;374(1774):20180376. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2018.0376.PMID: 31006368 

 

 

Other relevant information 

Organization of workshops:

Organisation (with Simon Levin, Princeton University) of the Santa Fe Institute Workshop on “Ecological Complexity and the Sixth Extinction” (virtual meeting)

November 2-6, 2020; https://www.santafe.edu/events/ecological-complexi-tyand-6th-extinction

 

Organisation (with Chris Kempes, SFI and NASA) of the Santa Fe Institute Workshop on “Origins of life: the possible and the actual” (virtual meeting) https://www.santafe.edu/events/origins-life-possible-and-actua

 

Keynote speaker:

  • “Major synthetic transitions: from protocells to biosphere terraformation”

SynbioForum: engineering complex systems in biology

Old Divinity School, St. John's College, University of Cambridge, UK. October 29, 2018

 

  • “Liquid brains, Solid Brains”

Workshop on: Distributed, Collective Computation in Biological and Artificial Systems

Janelia Research Campus, Washington USA. March 19, 2019

 

  • “Synthetic multicellularity: the roads not taken”

 

7th International Conference on Stem Cell Engineering, 

Hotel Barcelona Center, Barcelona, Spain. Dec 2019