Alan Turing Lecture 2026 by Professor Raymond Goldstein

Architecture of Biological Complexity This lecture describes recent experimental and theoretical advances in understanding the architecture of organisms that serve as models for evolutionary transitions from unicellular to multicellular life. Professor Goldstein will discuss the shape-shifting properties of certain choanoflagellates (the closest living relatives of animals), the recent discovery of common probability distributions of cellular neighbourhood volumes in yeast and alga, and embryonic inversion and the spontaneous curling of the extracellular matrix of green algae. These studies together shed light on the fundamental question: How do cells produce structures external to themselves in an accurate and robust manner?