The COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019 and its uneven impact across different communities globally was quickly evident. In Canada, South Asian communities were disproportionately affected. In response, the South Asian COVID-19 Task Force (SACTF) emerged, seeking to address the unique challenges faced by the South Asian community.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNatural Killer (NK) cells provide key resistance against viral infections and tumors. A diverse set of activating and inhibitory NK cell receptors (NKRs) interact with cognate ligands presented by target host cells, where integration of dueling signals initiated by the ligand-NKR interactions determines NK cell activation or tolerance. Imaging experiments over decades have shown micron and sub-micron scale spatial clustering of activating and inhibitory NKRs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAllosteric communication is the basis of signaling and information transfer. Collective interactions between amino acid residues, which are spatially distributed in the three dimensional structure of a protein molecule, form the basis of allosteric network. While the construction of residue interaction graphs (RIG) is based on static crystal structures of proteins, it is important to extract information on protein dynamics to understand allostery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhage-bacteria interaction is a classic example of competitive coevolution in nature. Mathematical modeling of such interactions furnishes new insight into the dynamics of phage and bacteria. Besides its intrinsic value, a somewhat underutilized aspect of such insight is that it can provide beneficial inputs toward better experimental design.
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August 2019
Bacteriophages are more abundant than any other organism on our planet. The interaction of bacteriophages and bacteria and their coevolution is well known. In this chapter, we describe various aspects of modeling such systems and their dynamics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycobacteriophages infect mycobacteria, resulting in their death. Therefore, the possibility of using them as therapeutic agents against the deadly mycobacterial disease tuberculosis (TB) is of great interest. To obtain better insight into the dynamics of mycobacterial inactivation by mycobacteriophages, this study was initiated using mycobacteriophage D29 and Mycobacterium smegmatis as the phage-host system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProteins are the ultimate carriers of information encoded within genes. The salient feature of proteins is their ability to perform a vast array of function with extraordinary specificity. This specificity of proteins is related directly to their structural conformations, which arises as a result of complex interactions among its constituent amino acid residues.
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