Van Savage

Professor

vsavage@ucla.edu
66692
510F Boyer Hall

Recent Courses

BIOENGR CM186 | C&S BIO M186 | COM SCI CM186 | EE BIOL M178 - Computational Systems Biology: Modeling and Simulation of Biological Systems
BIOENGR CM186 (1B) | BIOENGR CM286 (1B) | C&S BIO M186 (1B) | COM SCI CM186 (1B) | COM SCI CM286 (1B) | EE BIOL M178 (1B) - Computational Systems Biology: Modeling and Simulation of Biological Systems
BIOMATH 200 - Research Frontiers in Biomathematics

Research Areas

Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Macroecology, Physiological Ecology, Plant Biology, Theory, Thermal Ecology

Research Interests

I am a Professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Computational Medicine departments. A major goal of my research is to quantify and understand the possible functions, forms, and interactions of biological systems that result in the extraordinary diversity in nature. I have studied a wide range of areas such as metabolic scaling, consumer-resource interactions, rates of evolution, effects of global warming on ecosystems, tumor growth, and sleep. Many theories, including some of my work, focus on optimal or average properties, but more recently, I have been working to obtain the large amounts of data necessary to characterize variation in key properties. My new findings about the diversity and variation in form and function are revealing flaws in current models, and I am working to develop new theories that incorporate realistic amounts of natural variation.

Selected Publications

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1015178108

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2656.12081

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11131

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1813723116

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1012194108

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41540-018-0069-9

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-018-0241-7

https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aba0398

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsif.2020.0624

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02918-5

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004455

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsif.2019.0391

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.691830/full

C. Kempes and V.M. Savage, "When science hits a limit, learn to ask different questions", Aeon, - (2018) [link].

J.N. Pruitt, A. Berdahl, C. Riehl, N. Pinter-Wollman, H.V. Moeller, E.G. Pringle, L.M. Aplin, E.J.H. Robinson, J. Grilli, P. Yeh, V.M. Savage, M.H. Price, J. Garland, I.C. Gilby, M.C. Crofoot, G.N. Doering, E.A. Hobson, "Social tipping points in animal societies", Aeon, 285 (1887): 20181282- (2018) .

E. Tekin*, P. Yeh, and V.M. Savage, "General form for interaction measures and framework for deriving higher-order emergent effects", Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 6 : 166- (2018) .

M. Cruz-Loya*, T. Kang, N. Lozano, R. Watanabe, E. Tekin*, R. Damoiseaux, V.M. Savage, and P. Yeh, "Stressor interaction networks suggest antibiotic resistance co-opted from stress responses to temperature", The ISME Journal, 6 : - (2018) [link].

E. Tekin*, C. White, T. Kang, N. Singh, M. Cruz-Loya, R. Damoiseaux, V.M. Savage,
and P. Yeh, "Prevalence and patterns of higher-order drug interactions in Escherichia coli", npj Nature Systems Biology and Applications, 4 (31): - (2018) .

L. Lee*, V.M. Savage, and P. Yeh, "Intermediate levels of antibiotics may increase diversity of colony size phenotype in bacteria", Computational and Structural Biotechnology, 16 : 307-315 (2018) .

V.M. Savage, "An overconfident public learns the limits of predictive technology", Zocalo Public Square, 16 : - (2017) [link].

S.S. Chang, S. Tu, KI. Naek, A. Pietersen, Y.H. Liu, V.M. Savage, S.P.L. Hwang, T.K. Hsiai, and M. Roper, "An overconfident public learns the limits of predictive technology", Optimal occlusion uniformly partitions red blood cells fluxes within a microvascular network, PLoS Computational Biology 13 (12): - (2017) .

B.J. Enquist, L.P. Bentley, A. Shnekin, B. Maitner, V.M. Savage, S. Michaeltz, B. Blonder, V. Buzzard, T.E.B. Espinoza, W. Farfan-Rios, C. Doughty, G.R. Goldsmith, R.E. Martin, N. Salinas, M. Silman, S. Diaz, G.P. Asner, and Y. Malhi, "Assessing trait-based scaling theory in tropical forests spanning a broad temperature gradient", Global Ecology and Biogeography, 26 (12): - (2017) [link].

E. Tekin*, V.M. Savage, and P. Yeh, "Measuring higher-order drug interactions: A review of recent approaches", Current Opinion in Systems Biology, 4 : 16-23 (2017) .