The NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology is composed of investigators at the forefront of innovative research at the interface of mathematics and biology. Each member of the NSF-Simons NITMB brings a unique perspective that is vital for achieving the NITMB’s mission to develop new mathematics and inspire biological discovery. In order to highlight the diversity of expertise present, and the valuable contributions of NITMB members, the NITMB will be sharing insight into one of our members every month.
Jasmine Nirody, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago
Jasmine Nirody is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and a member of the Center for Living Systems at the University of Chicago. Her training is spread across applied mathematics, biophysics, and integrative biology. The research in the Nirody Lab focuses on how organisms sense and respond to mechanical cues from natural environments, which can be spatially complex and often fluctuate over time. Professor Nirody is collaborating with István Kovács, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University and member of the NITMB, on the NITMB supported research project "Uncovering the genetic fitness landscape behind bacterial motility in complex environments."
We spoke with Jasmine Nirody to learn more about her research interests and work with the NITMB.
What is your current research area?
“We're interested in understanding the physics of how organisms interact with their environments, and how these interactions feed back to shape their behavior and morphology. We work on systems ranging across length scales and levels of biological organization -- from molecular motors to bacteria to tardigrades! So, the projects in our lab currently range from understanding how bacterial flagellar systems adapt as cells swim through complex fluids to how jumping spiders take off and land on shifting substrates like sand or soil. It's always fascinating to see the common conceptual threads that emerge in these super different systems!”
What disciplines does your research integrate?
“Our research sits at the interface of biophysics, behavior, and evolution. We use a ton of different tools from mathematics and physics (mechanics, statistical physics, differential equations, stochastic processes, to name a few!) to answer questions in organismal and evolutionary biology. It's important to us to consider the organisms we're working with in the context of their ecology and evolutionary history, so we do a lot of field work to observe them in their natural environments and build a lot of novel setups in the lab to rigorously test our hypotheses as close to the 'real world' as we can get. We also work with collections at the Field Museum to look more broadly across species that we might not have access to otherwise (museum days are always a treat!).”
Where do you find inspiration?
“I'm super lucky to be able to work with researchers (both trainees and collaborators) from a wide variety of fields. Getting to hear their different viewpoints on the same scientific problem is always inspiring and invigorating! Trainees in my lab come with backgrounds in biophysics, ecology and evolutionary biology, computer science, and engineering -- it's so great that our work benefits from all these unique perspectives that would never be possible if we all had the exact same training.”
What aspects of your research could be interesting to mathematicians or applied to biology?
“A lot of our research leads to really interesting questions in dynamical systems and stochastic processes -- natural environments are inherently dynamic and uncertain! One of the reasons we work on a bunch of very different organismal systems is that we're interested in finding 'universal' relationships between environmental and organismal features: for instance, how does phenotypic flexibility affect the rate of evolution? This requires considering adaptive dynamics across a huge range of timescales (from adaptive locomotive strategies over seconds or minutes to structural evolution of an appendage over hundreds of millions of years), which we would be very excited about exploring more in collaboration with mathematicians and theorists.”
What about the NITMB do you find exciting?
“I've had an overwhelmingly positive experience being part of interdisciplinary institutes -- I've sought them out at every institution I've been at! NITMB is particularly exciting because of the efforts to bring together theorists and experimentalists. I think we build more realistic, predictive models when they are done with validating experiments in mind, and our experimental design is more thoughtful and rigorous when guided by theoretical results. I'm also really excited to have an institute that brings Northwestern and UChicago together -- it's been great getting to know a whole new set of fantastic colleagues and potential collaborators!”
What career achievement are you most proud of?
“It makes me really proud to see the collaborative atmosphere in my lab. Everyone talks to each other about their science, even though the projects they work on are so different. Getting to see their willingness to go outside their comfort zones to learn new things and help each other is so inspiring. I'm constantly amazed at how lucky I am to work with such an intellectually curious and collegial bunch of people!”
Outside of your research, what other interests do you have?
“These days, I'm having so much fun watching our six month old daughter Avani discover the world -- taking her to the lake or even just to a new corner of the apartment is an adventure!”
What are you hoping to work on in the future?
“A lot of what I've worked on up until now has focused on mechanisms: how do organisms do this or that? I'm really interested now about delving more into the evolutionary 'why' questions: how have the environments that organisms interact with shaped the forms and behaviors we observe in nature? For us, this means doing more comparative studies and working with a broader range of species (including a ton of non-model organisms, which is really exciting in its own right!). For instance, we've been thinking a lot about how different organizations of flagella along a bacterium's cell body facilitate motility in different environments: a lot of marine species have one long polar flagellar filament, while bacteria that navigate biological tissues or soil tend to have multiple filaments arranged randomly along the cell body. What are the environmental parameters that favor different flagellar numbers and arrangements? One of the great things about working with bacteria is that they have short generation times so you can see evolution in action: we're especially excited about doing directed evolution experiments in different engineered environments to test our hypotheses!”
The NITMB is proud to have Professor Nirody as a valued member of the Institute. More information on Jasmine Nirody’s work is available on the Nirody Lab website. Professor Nirody is also open to emails from interested collaborators.