Dr. Aviv Bergman is the Founding Chairman of Einstein's newly created Department of Systems and Computational Biology. The investigative approach of the Bergman laboratory uses both theoretical and experimental methodologies that are particularly applicable to studying complex states such as aging, cancer and neuropsychiatric diseases.
Current and future efforts include the following:
- Evolution of complex biological systems and networks, such as the interactions that occur among genes or proteins. Dr. Bergman demonstrated a novel mechanism by which most, or perhaps all, genes reveal observable variation at the system level when their function is compromised (Nature 2003), a mechanism that likely underlies the loss of robustness with aging.
- Strategies to identify longevity genes and the mechanisms by which they may protect against several age-related diseases (PLoS Comput Biol. 2007). This approach includes high throughput and system/ computational approaches.