transmission. - Three research groups at IGC lead by Jocelyne Demengeot, Karina Xavier and Isabel Gordo joint efforts to unveil how the bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli), one of the first species to colonize the human gut at birth, adapts and evolves in the mouse intestine. The study published in PLoS Genetics in March 2014, showed that E. coli with different advantageous mutations rapidly emerge and, consequently, a large genetic variation in this species is generated over time demonstrating how rich the evolutionary dynamics of each bacteria is in a healthy animal. - The research team led by Henrique Teotónio in collaboration with Isabel Gordo, both from the IGC, has experimentally tested the Haldane's theory for the first time. The study was published in Nature Communications in September 2013 and confirmed this theory for the introduction of a new beneficial allele in a population. The study contributes to a better comprehension of how a population can evolve, with implications for studies on how species adapt to changing environments or species conservation. - In August 2013, the research team led by Miguel Godinho Ferreira in collaboration with Isabel Gordo, showed for the first time that chromosomes rearrangements (such as inversions or translocations) can provide advantages to the cells that harbor them depending on the environment they are exposed. The study published in Nature Communications contributes to better understand different biological problems such as: how cancer cells that have chromosomal rearrangements can outgrow normal cells or how organisms may evolve in the same physical location to form distinct species. - The researcher Miguel Soares co-authored a review in Science, in February 2012, on a largely overlooked strategy for treating infectious diseases. The immune system protects from infections by detecting and eliminating invading pathogens. The authors purposed a third strategy considering tolerance to infection, whereby the infected host protects itself from infection by reducing tissue damage and other negative effects caused by the pathogen or the immune response against the invader. - In December 2011 the study published in Developmental Cell by Lar Jansen and his team uncovered a very simple, neat mechanism whereby the cell couples DNA duplication, cell division and centromere assembly. By using the same machinery for all these steps but in opposite ways, the cells confirm that the right number of copies of both genes and centromeres are made by allowing each the appropriate time. - The IGC has