Tuesday 29 April, 6:00pm
Can We “Predict” Our Immune Strength Against Viral Infections – A Mathematical Prognosis? Dr Amit Chattopadhyay (Aston University)
Abstract
Historically, the word virus means ‘poison’ in Latin and the modern parlance is not much different either – ‘an agent that causes infectious diseases’. However, a virus is fundamentally different from a bacterium in that it requires a host cell to coordinate its metabolism, essentially meaning that it is not a conventional life form that can self-sustain itself. In simplistic terms, a virus needs a career, a host, to propagate. When it interacts with such a host cell, it purports to wreck havoc by setting up alternative chemical pathways in the immune system of the host. In order to mitigate such activities, the host cell tries to organise its immune network through the proliferation of a set of chemical bonds, called ‘immunological synapse’ (IS). This IS bond has two very interesting characteristics; they mature at length scales between 15 to 45 nanometres and such mature bonds have maximum (immune) strength between time scales of 2 – 8 hours. Until recently, the origin of both such numbers were unknown and it was a mystery as to why vertebrates (e.g. humans) care to choose such specific numbers to strengthen their immune systems. The first of these ‘riddles’ has now been solved and substantial knowledge advancement has been achieved on the other as well. This presentation will focus on how this quantitative biological understanding was ordained through a cross-disciplinary implementation of techniques from physics and mathematics. Very little knowledge of mathematics other than elementary probability theory and some school level differential equations will be assumed as information a priori. As an ongoing project, there are exciting unanswered questions that will also be brought to the fore for furthering discussions and to stimulate breakthrough ideas in solving this problem!
Venue: Room G8, Aston University, Aston Triangle B4 7ET
No charge is made to attend meetings and non-members are welcome.
