Dr. Saurav Mallik

Dr. Saurav (Robb) Mallik joined the faculty of life sciences at Tel Aviv University (TAU) as a Principal Investigator in 2025. Trained initially in physics as an undergraduate at Scottish Church College, Kolkata, India, he transitioned to biology for his master's in molecular biology at the University of Calcutta. His doctoral research, also at the University of Calcutta, investigated the assembly and evolution of protein complexes driven by point mutations. He then moved to the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, for his postdoctoral work, focusing on how gene duplication drives the evolution of protein complexes.

2007-2010       Bachelor’s Degree in Physics in the Department of Physics, Scottish Church College, University of Calcutta.
 

2010-2012       Master’s Degree in Biophysics and Molecular Biology in the Department of Biophysics, Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, University of Calcutta. Thesis Advisor: Prof. Sudip Kundu.
 

2013-2018       Doctoral Research in Structural and Evolutionary Bioinformatics in the Department of Biophysics, Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, University of Calcutta. Mentor: Prof. Sudip Kundu.
 

2019-2020       Postdoctoral Research in the Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science. Mentor: Prof. Dan Tawfik.
 

2021-2023       Postdoctoral Research Department of Chemical and Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science. Mentor: Prof. Emmanuel Levy.
 

2023-2025       Research Associate Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science. Employer: Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel.

We ask a series of fundamental questions at the interface of biochemistry, genomics, and evolutionary biology. These questions are all centered around the origin and evolution of complex biological systems composed of interconnected building blocks. We study three types of systems:

​(1) Protein complexes: protein subunits are building blocks; connected through direct physical association.

(2) Genome architecture, genes are building blocks; linearly connected through DNA continuity.

(3) Metabolic networks, enzymes are building blocks; connected through sequences of chemical reactions.

For each of these systems, we investigate the evolutionary origins of its building blocks and their connectivity. As such, we study how present-day complex systems originated from simpler beginnings in the deep past. We also study the reverse process: how ancestral complex systems were simplified in parasites and endosymbionts through reductive evolution. We pursue these questions using a combination of carefully selected model systems and computational frameworks.​​​​

To study these phenomena, on one hand, we employ phylogenetic methods to reconstruct the evolutionary history of gene gain, loss, fission, fusion, duplication, and miniaturization events. We integrate the phylogenetic data with biochemical properties of these systems.

Saurav Mallik*, Meir Sylman, Dvir Dahary, Orna Dahan, Shulamit Michaeli, Gerald F Späth, Yitzhak Pilpel* (2025) The evolutionary origin of host association and polycistronic transcription in trypanosomatids. BioArxiv, DOI: 10.1101/2025.10.27.684775.

Saurav Mallik*, Angel F Cisneros, Christian R Landry*, Emmanuel D Levy* (2025) Co-translational assembly promotes functional diversification of paralogous proteins. BioArxiv, DOI: 10.1101/2025.01.22.634331.

Zikun Zhu, Saurav Mallik, Taylor A Stevens, Riming Huang, Emmanuel D Levy, Shu-ou Shan (2025) Principles of cotranslational mitochondrial protein import. Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.07.021.

Saurav Mallik*, Johannes Venezian, Arseniy Lobov, Meta Heidenreich, Hector Garcia-Seisdedos, Todd O Yeates, Ayala Shiber*, Emmanuel D Levy* (2025) Structural determinants of co-translational protein complex assembly. Cell, 188(3): 764-777.e22.

Highlighted in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-024-00824-x Spotlight in Molecular Cell: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2025.01.007

Saurav Mallik*, Dan S Tawfik, Emmanuel D Levy* (2022). Gene Duplication diversifies the Landscape of Protein Oligomeric State and Function. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development, 76: 101966.

Rebeaud M., Mallik S., Goloubinoff P.A., Tawfik D.S. (2020) On the evolution of chaperones and co-chaperones and the expansion of proteomes across the Tree of Life. PNAS 118(21):e2020885118.

Press release: https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/chemistry/cells-and-city

Suman Hait, Saurav Mallik*, Sudipto Basu, Sudip Kundu*. (2019). Finding the generalized molecular principles of protein thermal stability. Proteins, 88(6):788-808.

Saurav Mallik, Dan S. Tawfik* (2020). Determining the interaction status and evolutionary fate of duplicated homomeric proteins. PLoS Computational Biology, 16(8): e1008145.

Faculty Opinions Recommended: facultyopinions.com/prime/738566340

Saurav Mallik & Sudip Kundu* (2018). Topology and oligomerization of mono- and oligomeric proteins regulate their half-lives in the cell. Structure, 26(6): 869–878.

Saurav Mallik & Sudip Kundu* (2017). Coevolutionary constraints in the sequence-space of macromolecular complexes reflect their self-assembly pathways. Proteins, 85(7): 1183-1189

Faculty Opinions Recommended: facultyopinions.com/prime/727450409

Saurav Mallik & Sudip Kundu* (2015). Co-evolutionary constraints of globular proteins correlate with their folding rates. FEBS Letters, 589(17): 2179-85

Faculty Opinions Recommended: facultyopinions.com/prime/725638601

Saurav Mallik, Hiroshi Akashi, Sudip Kundu* (2015). Assembly constraints drive co-evolution among ribosomal constituents, Nucleic Acids Research, 43(11): 5352-5363.