Ram Lab

We study evolutionary biology, ecology, and cultural evolution, using mathematical, computational, statistical, and machine-learning models and collaborations with empirical biologists. Our interests span a wide range of biological systems, from viruses, bacteria, and fungi to whales and humans. See the research page to learn about our research interests and projects.

Our lab is in the School of Zoology in the Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University.
We are also affiliated with the Sagol School of Neuroscience, the Safra Center for Bioinformatics, the Center for AI & Data Science, and the Center for Combating Pandemics at Tel Aviv University.

News

• Boaz's paper on the evolution of self-replicating artificial neural networks is now published at PLOS Computational Biology.
• New paper suggests that aneuploidy can be an evolutionary diversion on the path to adaptation, now published in Molecular Biology and Evolution. The research was performed by Ilia and Martin, with help from Selmecki, Pilpel, and Yona labs.
• Read Yoav's journal club on the evolution of modifier genes, now available at Nature Reviews Genetics.
• We say goodbye to Remus and congratulate him on his future adventures in research!
• Our new paper on cultural transmission of cooperative hunting is now online! This study was performed by Talia Borofsky while on her visit to our lab; she has recently completed her PhD at the Feldman lab in Stanford.
• Gabriela's paper is now published in Genetics! This is a collaboration with Tzachi Pilpel.
• Remus has presented his work on evolutionary rescue in cancer at the Mathematical Models of Evolutionary Rescue meeting at the MPI in Plon, Germany.
• Our new paper with the Stern lab is now available on Virus Evolution. We used neural networks and simulations to infer the paramters that govern the evolution of the MS2 bacteriophage.
• In the 2023 meeting of the Israeli Society for Evolutionary Biology, our lab presented talks by Remus Stana and Yoav Ram, and posters by Yoav Livne, and Nadav Ben-Nun.
• We recieved a grant from the TAU Center for AI and Data Science, together with Yoni Belmaker and Yossi Yovel, to develop an AI-bsaed acoustic monitoring tool for coral reef health.
• Congratulations to Remus Stana for winning the Ela Kodesz travel grant!
• Two new MSc students in the lab: Welcome Stav, and Nadav!
• Congratulations to Saar for successfuly defending his MSc thesis, titled "Cultural Evolutionary Dynamics with Success and Influence Bias".
• We received a BSF grant together with David Gresham from NYU! The grant topics is Integrated experimental and simulation-based inference to study copy number variation in evolution.
• New paper is out in PLOS Biology! We infered rate and effect of CNV in yeast using neural networks and simulations. A collaboration with the Gresham lab at New York University, led by Grace Avecilla.
• Congratulations to Joshua Caleb Mcdonald for being selected as a Zuckerman postdoctoral scholar! Josh will formally join our lab next week.
• New paper on the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 under lockdowns and testing with Yael Gurevich and Lilach Hadany.
• The Israeli Society for Evolutionary Biology will host it's third annual conference on March 9-10 at Weizmann Institute.
• New postdoc at the lab, Remus Stana, who recently received his PhD in mathematics from Leeds University.
• We welcome to the lab a new graduate student, Rony, and two visiting students Talia, Luise.
• Our paper on late effective start date of NPIs (lockdowns) during the first wave of COVID outbreaks is published at IJID. Work by Ilia Kohanovski and a collaboration with Uri Obolski.
• New paper on the evolution of altruism under conformity and content-biased cultural transmission is now published in Theoretical Population Biology. This is a collaboration with Marc Feldman and Kaleda Denton of Stanford University.
• Congratulations to Boaz Shvarzman for successfully defending his thesis on evolution of artificial neural networks!
• New preprint on simulation-based inference from adaptive dynamics using neural networks. This is a collaboration with the Gresham lab at New York University, led by Grace Avecilla.
• Congratulations to Dor Cohen for successfully defending his thesis on cultural evolution of cooperation!