Ricard Solé

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

Life & Medical Sciences

I am ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where I'm the head of the Complex Systems Lab. I am also External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico, USA) and external faculty of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF. I am also member of the editorial board of several international journals. I obtained my degrees in Physics and Biology at the University of Barcelona and received my PhD in Physics at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. I have been awarded with grants of the James McDonnell Foundation, the Botín Foundation and an ERC Advanced Grant.


Research interests

One of my main research interests is understanding the origins of complexity and its decay in biological systems and their engineered counterparts. How cells, genetic codes, symbiosis, multicellularity, computation, cooperation, neural systems, language, intelligence or consciousness emerge are some of the key problems that I would like to understand. To this goal, my Lab develops both theoretical and experimental research, including an ambitious program on synthetic biology. The later area includes an exploration of synthetic multicellular systems, synthetic swarm intelligence and strategies to redesign existing ecosystems to fight agains climate change and its impacts.

Selected publications

– Seoane LF & Sole R 2016, ‘Multiobjective Optimization and Phase Transitions’, Proceedings Of Eccs 2014: European Conference On Complex Systems, 259 – 270.

– de Lorenzo V, Marliere P & Sole R 2016, ‘Bioremediation at a global scale: from the test tube to planet Earth’, Microbial Biotechnology, 9, 5, 618 – 625.

– Sole R, Amor DR, Duran-Nebreda S, Conde-Pueyo N, Carbonell-Ballestero M, Montanez R, 2016, ‘Synthetic collective intelligence’, Biosystems, 148, 47 – 61.

– Sole R, Amor DR & Valverde S 2016, ‘On Singularities and Black Holes in Combination-Driven Models of Technological Innovation Networks’, Plos One, 11, 1, e0146180.

– Olle-Vila A, Duran-Nebreda S, Conde-Pueyo N, Montanez R & Sole R 2016, ‘A morphospace for synthetic organs and organoids: the possible and the actual’, Integrative Biology, 8, 4, 485 – 503.

– Macia J, Manzoni R, Conde N, Urrios A, de Nadal E, Sole R & Posas F 2016, ‘Implementation of Complex Biological Logic Circuits Using Spatially Distributed Multicellular Consortia’, Plos Computational Biology, 12, 2, e1004685.

– Duran-Nebreda S, Bonforti A, Montanez R, Valverde S & Sole R 2016, ‘Emergence of proto-organisms from bistable stochastic differentiation and adhesion’, Journal Of The Royal Society Interface, 13, 117, 20160108.

– Urrios A, Macia J, Manzoni R, Conde N, Bonforti A, de Nadal E, Posas F & Sole R 2016, ‘A Synthetic Multicellular Memory Device’, Acs Synthetic Biology, 5, 8, 862 – 873.

– Duran-Nebreda S & Sole RV 2016, ‘Toward Synthetic Spatial Patterns in Engineered Cell Populations with Chemotaxis’, Acs Synthetic Biology, 5, 7, 654 – 661.

– Sole R 2016, ‘Synthetic transitions: towards a new synthesis’, Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-biological Sciences, 371, 1701, 20150438.

– Sole R 2016, ‘The major synthetic evolutionary transitions’, Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-biological Sciences, 371, 1701, 20160175.