Pranas Grigaitis

The function of cells is driven by remarkably plastic metabolism, adaptive to different biochemical and ecological contexts. This leads to vast diversity and complexity of metabolic strategies that living organisms undertake. Majority of natural living systems are heavily intertwined, or exhibit distribution of labor: organisms become (inter-)dependent on other lifeforms (for instance, function of gut microbiome is indispensable in some aspects to humans). There has been a lot of recent progress in dissecting and understanding distributed metabolic systems, through the synergy of combined experimental- and theoretical studies.

In my research, I rely on computational models of metabolism to explain metabolic strategies of different organisms. I have developed so-called genome-scale metabolic models, representations of organism’s of metabolic capacity based on their genome sequence, for multiple bacteria, yeasts, and higher eukaryotes. To compute and analyse potential metabolic states, I apply elements of economic theory (constrained optimization, yield/benefit analysis) on these models. Data streams coming from high-throughput (-omics) approaches are used to validate of model predictions. Combined, these approaches guide us in answering the question(s) of “what does the cell/organism do?”.

I am a post-doctoral researcher @Systems Biology Lab at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I am a biochemist by training, and, fascinated by the power that mathematics and computers bring to modern biology, I moved towards computational systems biology over the years. In early 2023, I have defended my PhD Thesis here at the Vrije Universiteit.