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Andres Kriete

Andres Kriete, PhD

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs,
Teaching Professor

Office: Bossone 718-B
Phone: 215.895.6163
Email: ak3652@drexel.edu

Bio

The focus of my research is on complex systems biology, which addresses principles like self-organization, top-down causation, robustness, and semantic information processing. We are only at the beginning to understand the full implications of such investigations in areas like development, aging, or the mind-body connection.

Complementary to the theoretical work, I address energetic perturbations in aging through experimentation. My group has established an aging model for post-mitotic cells through “Energy Restriction in Quiescence” (ERiQ). This cell model demonstrates metabolic stress and transcriptional deregulation seen in many aging tissues, which may underlie the development of age-related diseases involving deregulation of the Akt, mTOR, NF-kappaB and p53 signaling pathways. I have suggested that aging is a robustness tradeoff: cellular responses are tuned to provide survival to acute stressors, but these responses conflict with longevity assurance.  To demonstrate, we assembled generic whole cell computational models using feedback loop motifs from control theory in conjunction with rule-based descriptors simulating the progression of aging. Such models can be executed rapidly and repeatedly to study the effect of molecular mechanisms on the aging phenotype.

These long-term research interests reach back to 2007, when I co-organized a first workshop on the Systems Biology of Aging at the Santa Fe Institute, NM, entitled "Complexities of Aging in Biological Systems," initiating a series of subsequent meetings and workshops. Prior activities include multiscale imaging, and I am one of the founding members on the “Focus on Microscopy” conference series.

Education

  • Habilitation (Venia legendi), Medical Informatics, University of Giessen, Medical School, 1997
    • Projects: Functional multiscale biosimulation, biomedical informatics
  • PhD, Physics, University of Bremen, Germany, 1985
    • Dissertation: Analysis and classification of multidimensional microscopic data
  • Diploma, Physics, University of Bremen, Germany, 1981
    • Fields: Optics, image analysis, modeling signal processing in the retina

Teaching Interests
My teaching interests are biological control systems, biostatistics, and bioimaging. I am leading the innovation of our graduate programs and have developed new courses and programs in bioinformatics and advanced therapeutics.

Research Interests

Complex systems biology, robustness, thermodynamics, control theory, semantic information processing, biomedical imaging.

Publications

Kriete A: Dissipative scaling of development and aging in multicellular organisms. Biosystems. Mar:237, 2024.

Cohen AA, Ferrucci L, Fülöp T, Gravel D, Hao N, Kriete A, Levine ME, Lipsitz LA, Olde Rikkert MGM, Rutenberg A, Stroustrup N, Varadhan R.Nat Aging. 2022 Jul;2(7):580-591. A complex systems approach to aging biology. Nature Aging 2022 Jul 2(7):580-591.

Alfego D, Rodeck U, Kriete A: Global mapping of transcription factor motifs in human aging. PLOSOne. 2018.

Yalamanchili N, Kriete A, Alfego A, Danowski KM, Kari C and Rodeck U. Distinct Cell Stress Responses Induced by ATP Restriction in Quiescent Human Fibroblasts. Frontier Genetics, 04 October 2016.

Kriete A. Robustness and Aging - A Systems Level Perspective. BioSystems, April 2013.

Kriete A, Eils R. Computational Systems Biology, 2005, and 2nd edition, 2013 Elsevier - Academic Press.

Kriete A.: LungSim – Multiscale simulation of human lung. 2008.