As of October Jona Kayser heads new Research Group "Cellular Evolution" at the Max Planck Institute for the science of light.

Cellular evolution is one of the most fundamental principles of life. At the same time, it is at the root of some of the most pressing challenges of modern health care, such as cancer and the emergence of drug resistance. 

"Our group studies how system-level evolutionary dynamics inherently emerge from fundamental physical interactions between the constituent cells. Applying state-of-the-art optical, biophysical and genetic tools to a new class of tailored model systems allows us to track complex evolutionary processes with unprecedented accuracy."

The gained insights will help to advance new strategies in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.