Andreas Wagner (born 26 January 1967) is an Austrian/US evolutionary biologist and professor at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. He is known for his work on the role of robustness and innovation in biological evolution. Wagner is professor and chairman at the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zürich.
Biography Wagner studied biology at the University of Vienna. He received his Ph.D. at Yale University, Department of Biology in 1995. He also holds a M. Phil. from Yale. From 1995 to 1996 he was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin, Germany. From 1998 to 2002 he was assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, Department of Biology and from 2002 to 2012 associate professor (with tenure) at the University of New Mexico, Department of Biology. He was appointed professor at the University of Zürich, Institute of Biochemistry in 2006. In 2011, he joined the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zürich. Since 2016, he is chairman of this department. Since 1999, he is also external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, USA.Andreas Wagner CV
Scientific contribution Wagner's work revolves around the robustness of biological systems, and about their ability to innovate, that is, to create novel organisms and traits that help them survive and reproduce. Robustness is the ability of a biological system to withstand perturbations, such as DNA mutations and environmental change. Early in his career Wagner developed a widely used mathematical model for gene regulatory circuits,Wagner A (1994) Evolution of gene networks by gene duplications: a mathematical model and its implications on genome organization. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91 4387-4391. (Wagner's gene network model) and used this model to demonstrate that natural selection can increase the robustness of such circuits to DNA mutations.Wagner A (1996) Does evolutionary plasticity evolve? Evolution 50:1008-1023. Experimental work in Wagner's Zürich laboratory showed that proteins can evolve robustness to perturbations.Bratulic S, Gerber F, & Wagner A (2015) Mistranslation drives the evolution of robustness in TEM-1 beta-lactamase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 112:12758-12763. One source of robustness to mutations is redundant duplicate genes. Natural selection can maintain their redundancy and the ensuing robustness.Wagner A (1999) Redundant gene functions and natural selection. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 12:1-16.Wagner A (2000) The role of pleiotropy, population size fluctuations, and fitness effects of mutations in the evolution of redundant gene functions. Genetics 154:1389-1401. However, more important than redundancy, Wagner has argued, is the “distributed robustness” of complex biological systems, which arises from the cooperation of multiple different parts, such as proteins in a regulatory network.Wagner A (2005) Distributed robustness versus redundancy as causes of mutational robustness. Bioessays 27:176-188.
Wagner showed that robustness can accelerate innovation in biological evolution, because it helps organisms tolerate otherwise deleterious mutations that can help create new and useful traits.Wagner A (2008) Robustness and evolvability: a paradox resolved. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences 275:91-100. In this way, robust transcription factor binding sites, for example, can facilitate the evolution of new gene expression.Payne JL & Wagner A (2014) The robustness and evolvability of transcription factor binding sites. Science 343:875-877. An additional consequence of robustness is that evolving populations of organisms can accumulate cryptic genetic variation, inconsequential variation that may provide benefits in some environments. Wagner's laboratory showed experimentally that such cryptic variation can indeed accelerate the evolution of an RNA enzyme to react with a new substrate molecule.Hayden EJ, Ferrada E, & Wagner A (2011) Cryptic genetic variation promotes rapid evolutionary adaptation in an RNA enzyme. Nature 474:92-95. Wagner has argued that robustness can also help resolve the long-standing neutralism-selectionism controversy, which revolves around the question whether frequent neutral mutations – a consequence of robustness – are important for Darwinian evolution.Wagner A (2008) Neutralism and selectionism: A network-based reconciliation. Nature Reviews Genetics 9:965-974. The reason is that neutral mutations are important stepping stones to later evolutionary adaptations and innovations. Robust systems can also bring forth useful traits – potential exaptations – that arise as mere by-products of other, adaptive traits, which can help explain the great abundance of exaptations in life's evolution.Barve A & Wagner A (2013) A latent capacity for evolutionary innovation through exaptation in metabolic systems. Nature 500:203-206.
In 2011 Wagner proposed a theory of innovation in which “innovability” – the ability of living systems to create innovations – is a consequence of their robustness, which in turn results from their exposure to ever-changing environments.Wagner A (2011) The molecular origins of evolutionary innovations. Trends in Genetics 27:397-410. One central element of the theory are large networks of genotypes with the same phenotypes, which populations of organisms can explore through DNA mutations, and which facilitate the origin of innovations.
Wagner's work has also contributed to long-standing philosophical problems in biology, such as the role of causality and randomness in biological evolution,Wagner A (2012) The role of randomness in Darwinian Evolution. Philosophy of Science 79:95-119.Wagner A (1999) Causality in complex systems. Biology and Philosophy 14(1):83-101. and to our understanding of the relationship between innovation in human technological and biological evolution, such as the importance of technology standards for innovation.Wagner A, Ortman S, & Maxfield R (2016) From the primordial soup to self-driving cars: Standards and their role in natural and technological innovation. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 13:20151086.
Fellowships and awards 2014 Elected Member, European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)EMBO enlarges its membership for 50th anniversary 2011 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)AAAS Members Elected as Fellows 2010 Gold medal for the book "Paradoxical Life", Independent Publisher Book Award (science category)Announcing the Results of the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards 2010 Silver medal for the book "Paradoxical Life" ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award (philosophy category)Garamond Agency 2004- Member, Faculty of 1000 Biology 1996-1998 Postdoctoral Fellowship, The Santa Fe Institute 1995-1996 Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study Berlin, Germany 1995 J.S. Nicholas Prize for Best Dissertation in Experimental Zoology
Publications Wagner has published more than 170 articles, a series of book chapters and four books.
Scientific articles Andreas Wagner Publication list (University of Zürich: Andreas Wagner Laboratory)
Books Wagner, A. (2019) Life Finds a Way: What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity. Basic Books. Wagner, A. (2014) The Arrival of the Fittest: How Nature Innovates. Penguin Random House. hbk; Wagner, A. (2011) The Origins of Evolutionary Innovations. Oxford University Press. pbk Wagner, A. (2009) Paradoxical Life. Yale University Press. Wagner, A. (2005) Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems. Princeton University Press.
References
External links University of Zürich: Andreas Wagner Laboratory Andeas Wagner at the Santa Fe Institute Andreas Wagner 2011 WORLD.MINDS INTERVIEW (WORLD.MINDS INTERVIEW, 2011. YouTube) Arrival of the Fittest (The Royal Institute, 2015. YouTube) Random no more: Evolution isn’t down to chance alone (New Scientist) The Strange Inevitability of Evolution. Good solutions to biology’s problems are astonishingly plentiful. (Nautil.us)