Alejandro Couce

Dr. Alejandro Couce leads the Evolutionary Systems Genetics laboratory at the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), where they combine experimental evolution with computational approaches to uncover general rules governing how microbes adapt. His work has helped revise the classical view that natural selection alone determines evolutionary outcomes, showing instead that biases in how mutations arise, and how they interact, can strongly shape adaptation. These constraints generate repeatable patterns, raising the prospect that evolution may be, at least in part, predictable. He trained in Biochemistry and Biology at the Universities of Salamanca and Autónoma de Madrid, and completed his PhD at CNB-CSIC under Jesús Blázquez (2012). He subsequently worked as a postdoc with Olivier Tenaillon (University of Paris), and later with Martin Buck (Imperial College London) as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow. He established his independent laboratory in 2019 at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, moving as a Tenured Scientist to CSIC in 2026.

Tentative Topic:

Mutational biases and epistasis complicate collateral sensitivity predictions

Pillars Topic/Subtopic:

PILLAR 3: INNOVATIVE BIOTECH & INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

3.2: Synthetic Biology, Molecular Microbiology & Bioinformatics

3.2f: Computational Genomics, Omics, Databases, Bioinformatics, Artificial Intelligence and Modeling