Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a central mechanism in bacterial evolution, allowing organisms to exchange genetic material outside of traditional reproduction. This process is a key driver of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of virulence traits.Unlike vertical inheritance, HGT leads to non-tree-like evolutionary relationships, motivating a network-based view of microbial evolution.In this talk I will present a minimal model for HGT and show how it captures distinctive statistical features of bacterial genomes. By combining the model with the genomic data, I infer general properties of the underlying HGT networks. FOR THE LATEST UPDATES AND CONTENT ON SOFT MATTER AND BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS AT THE WEIZMANN, VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.biosoftweizmann.com/
