Yuriy Pichugin

I am a theoretical biologist interested in the emergence of complexity and self-organization in evolving systems. Primarily, my research focuses on the evolution of multicellular life cycles: why initially solitary cells formed collectives, why these cells adopted a division of labor, and how the loose cell collectives gained their own identity and became multicellular organisms. Beyond this topic, I worked on eco-evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary game theory, and mathematical oncology (which also deals with evolution a lot).

My research is motivated by biological phenomena. To study them, I emplyoy a variety of technical approaches: from pen-and-paper calculations, to large-scale computer simulations, to data science methods - depending on what is more suitable for the challenge.

Currently, I am a project lead in the Theoretical Biology department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology.