Control system failures and evolutionary medicine

Join us for a conversation with Robert Perlman, Professor Emeritus of the Dept. of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences at the University of Chicago, and Randolph Nesse, Research Professor of Life Sciences and Founding Director of the Center for Evolution & Medicine at Arizona State University. They will lead a discussion about how natural selection shaped the thousands of control systems that make life possible, how their failure modes can help us understand disease, and the evolutionary reasons why some are especially vulnerable to failure. The goal is to create a community interested in developing work at this intersection, so please come prepared to share examples of how we can study why some control systems are vulnerable to failure.

Attendees are encouraged to read Perlman 2019*, "An evolutionary view of homeostasis: bioenergetics, life history theory, and responses to pregnancy" (https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198814153.003.0007) and Nesse 2021, "Evolutionary medicine needs engineering expertise" (https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2021/10/evolutionary-medicine-needs-engineering-expertise).
*Note: If you do not have access to this article, please contact us for assistance.

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