Ricard Solé

Professor Ricard Solé is head of the Complex Systems Lab (LINK). He is also an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico, USA), an external faculty of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF, an external faculty at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, a member of the Council of the European Complex Systems Society and member of the editorial board of PLoS ONE. 

Ricard focuses on understanding the evolutionary origins of complex systems, using both mathematical models and experimental approaches based on synthetic biology. He has proposed the concept of “synthetic major transitions” as a unifying framework to explore the origins of innovation in evolution using a parallel approach, namely the potential for building or simulating synthetic systems that can recreate past evolutionary events. This includes the origin of protocells, multicellular systems, symbiosis, cognition, and language. 

Another research area deals with unstable evolutionary dynamics, namely the dynamics of biological systems (particularly RNA viruses and cancer) that tend towards high genetic instability as part of their adaptation potential.

Ricard also introduced the concept of “terraforming” endangered or human-made ecosystems to avoid catastrophic shifts. 

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