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UG student

I am a senior at Shiv Nadar University, where I study Physics. I am very interested in using mathematics and physics to better understand biological systems, which brought me to systems biology. I have previously worked on cancer biology and the collective dynamics of C. elegans. Outside the lab, I prefer to just lie on my bed and rewatch Lord of the Rings. At the Gunawardena Lab, I am working with Lina Eckert on modelling sensitization in single cells. Specifically, we hope to identify the "hallmark" features of sensitization. last updated on 7 September 2026

UG student

I graduated from the Undergraduate Program in Genomic Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). My training focused on bioinformatics, but I later realized that I needed to broaden my toolkit to address the scientific questions that interest me: the principles underlying the emergence of complexity in living systems. I joined the Gunawardena lab to dive into the sometimes rough waters of theoretical and systems biology. Here, I had the pleasure of working closely with Lina Eckert on a collaboration with Jordi Garcia-Ojalvos' group. Our work focused on computational and mathematical approaches to understand the dynamic principles of habituation, the simplest form of learning, in single cells. Outside the lab, I am starting to develop an interest in swimming (in literal water) and always enjoy sharing a very occasional beer with Yahya. last updated on 10 September 2026

PhD student lina.eckert at upf.edu

I am generally interested in extracting the fundamental principles by which complex webs of molecular interactions drive the behaviour of living organisms. In particular, I hope to understand how cells process information and make decisions using their gene regulatory, metabolic or signalling networks. Drawing on concepts from nonlinear dynamics and information theory, in my PhD project I explore how single cells can perform complex computations and accommodate different types of learning behaviours. I am a joint PhD student in the labs of Prof. Jeremy Gunawardena and Prof. Jordi Garcia Ojalvo. During my studies in Interdisciplinary Science at ETH Zürich I completed a Master's thesis with Jeremy and Prof. Rosa Martinez Corral when they were still at Harvard Medical School. In this project we explored how habituation, a non-associative form of learning, can be implemented on the basis of biochemical networks in a single cell, which led to this paper. Before moving to Barcelona, I worked with Prof. Aneta Koseska at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behaviour in Bonn. last updated on 24 March 2026

postdoctoral research fellow mayrapatricia.garcia at upf.edu

I was trained as a physicist, completing a bachelor's degree at Universidad de Guadalajara and a master's and PhD on complex systems and systems biology at UNAM with Max Aldana, before transitioning into experimental biology. As a postdoc in the Cluzel Lab at Harvard, I crossed fully into experimental biology, using single-cell microscopy, microfluidics to track gene expression in E. coli. My interests have been around the connection of gene regulatory networks, its dynamics and the relationship and cost with their physiology and growth control. I am now transitioning into mammalian cell systems to investigate habituation at the single-cell level, revisiting classic Koshland-style experiments through time-lapse microscopy. last updated on 8 September 2026

Professor jeremy.gunawardena at upf.edu

I used to be a very pure mathematician, an algebraic topologist, but fell from grace some years ago (to borrow Marc Kac's gracious way of putting it) when I was a Dickson Instructor in the Mathematics Department at the University of Chicago. I volunteered to teach computer science, which made me interested in complexity, which eventually led to a long stint in industrial research at HP (Hewlett-Packard) Labs, where I ran part of the company's "blue skies" research programme. Post-genome systems biology brought complexity to centre stage and brought me to Harvard, to what was the Bauer Centre for Genomics Research at Harvard College and then to the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, where my lab studied cellular information processing using a combination of experiments and mathematical theory. I left Harvard in 2025 to pursue new ideas on cellular learning at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. last updated on 7 September 2026

Lab manager claudia.marini at upf.edu

With 25 years of experience in neuromolecular biology, I bring expertise in cell biology, cellular models, and advanced imaging to my role as Lab Manager and the laboratory's biological research specialist. I provide scientific and technical expertise in the design, development, and execution of cell-based experiments, with a particular focus on cell culture and the establishment, maintenance, and optimization of cellular models for research applications. A key area of my expertise is high-resolution live-cell microscopy, which I use to investigate cellular behavior and dynamics in real time. By combining advanced imaging approaches with cell-based experimental models, I contribute to the design and optimization of experiments aimed at capturing complex biological processes with high spatial and temporal resolution. My role combines hands-on experimental work with laboratory management, helping ensure a well-organized and efficient research environment while supporting the team in the integration of biological and imaging approaches into our research. last updated on 10 September 2026

Postdoctoral research fellow

I am a theoretical physicist by training (University of Salento, Lecce, Italy), although my scientific interests soon led me towards more interdisciplinary areas, particularly complex systems and complex networks. These fields deal with systems composed of many interacting components, often coupled through intricate and nonlinear relationships, whose collective dynamics can give rise to emergent behaviours that are difficult to anticipate from the properties of the individual components alone. At the beginning of my research journey at the IMT School for Advanced Studies (Lucca, Italy), and later during my PhD at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), I focused on social systems, where the interacting components are individuals and their collective dynamics give rise to phenomena such as the spreading of epidemics and disinformation through social networks. As my PhD progressed, my interests increasingly shifted from human social dynamics to biological systems. This brought me to the interface between physics, ecology, and biology, and ultimately to microbial ecology. My doctoral thesis focused on developing mathematical models to investigate how thousands of different microbial species can coexist at local scales, with particular emphasis on the role of spatial structure. This work also led me to spend a visiting research period at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, WA, USA), where I worked on the development of optimized large-scale computational simulations of bacterial communities. Now, at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), I am shifting perspective from communities of cells to individual cells. My research focuses on understanding how cells sense and process information, form memories, and learn from their environment. In particular, I am interested in how these capabilities emerge from the interplay of molecular networks within cells, allowing them to construct and continuously update internal representations of the world around them. More broadly, I am fascinated by how life is organized across scales and how complex biological behaviours emerge from interactions among simpler components. I am interested in understanding the principlexs connecting these different levels of organization, for which, perhaps, a new kind of physics may be needed. last updated on 7 September 2026

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