Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis and Paul Turner led a conversation exploring how the study of virus evolution can provide solutions to humanity’s problems in the President’s Room at the Schwarzman Center on March 1.
Turner, who currently directs both the Center for Phage Biology and Therapy and the Quantitative Biology Institute at Yale, was invited to speak in the latest installment of the “Dean’s Dialogue” series. The series invites faculty members to speak with Lewis and students about contemporary and often-challenging topics within their field of study. One of the series’ goals is to model conversation as a mode of engagement.
Wednesday’s talk was titled “Understanding Virus Evolution to Solve Human Problems.” Lewis and Turner discussed the replication and evolutionary potential of viruses, as well as their prevalence in the biosphere. The topic was chosen to highlight the challenge of disease-causing viruses and how they could potentially affect the future.
