Computer Science Department Events
There will be a Colloquium on Friday March 23 at 10:30 AM by Dr. Patric Lundburg.
FRIDAY MARCH 23 E&CS Building Auditorium 1st FloorTIME: 10:30 AMTITLE: Generating interaction models from temporal gene expression data in the context of a QTL genomic framework for infectious disease - when does systems biology become intractable?SPEAKER: Dr. Patric Lundburg, EVMSAbstract:
Most people are familiar with herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 as the cause of common cold sores. Beyond this mostly annoying clinical presentation, HSV is the predominant agent behind two far more serious conditions - herpes stromal keratitis, the leading cause of blindness by an infectious agent in the western world, and HSV encephalitis (HSE), the leading form of viral encephalitis that leads to high mortality and severe morbidity even when treated with highly effective antiviral drugs such as acyclovir.
We have used an established mouse model for HSE to identify a set of genomic locations that are involved in the control of HSV without collateral tissue damage during HSE. This data is based on survival of genetically resistant and susceptible mouse strains and crosses between them. The resulting quantitative trait loci (QTL) correlate time to death (or survival) of a few hundred individual backcross mice with genetic markers across the genome. This is our genetic framework, meaning that genes involved in the process that determine outcome following infection should reside at these genomic locations. Independently of the QTL analysis, we have performed Affymetrix analysis on the resistant and susceptible parent mouse strains following infection. This data set consists of tissue samples (two tissues, three mice per group) from uninfected controls and days 1, 2, 3, and 4 post-infection of both mouse strains. Overall, this amounts to approximately 1.2*106 data points and is our temporal gene expression data set. Preliminary Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) of the gene expression data has produced a list of about 18 genes, most of which fall within or near the QTL discussed above. Currently, we are trying to create a model for the temporal interaction of the IPA genes and the transcription factors they probably stem as delimited by the QTL analysis.
Bio:
A native of Sweden, Dr. Lundberg completed his B.A. (Bard College) and Ph.D. (UW-Madison) in the United States. Following a brief post-doc, he joined the faculty in the Division of Virology at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA. He has since migrated back eastward and currently is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Dr. Lundberg's primary research focus is the host-pathogen interaction during the earliest stages of herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE). He may be best known in the herpes community for his work on the genetics of resistance and the role of tumor necrosis factor in HSE, and in the biotechnology world for his contributions to in vivo siRNA delivery to avert CNS inflammation. His additional research interests include in vivo imaging, sex differences in infectious disease and the use of novel botanicals to alleviate HSV-related pathology.
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