York mathematician probes geometric route to combat viruses
Posted on 2 April 2007
Dr Reidun Twarock, an Anniversary Reader in the Departments of Biology and Mathematics, will study the structure and assembly of viruses, which will help to develop new anti-viral strategies.
I would like to use the Leverhulme Trust Award to build up a group of mathematicians, computational biologists and biophysicists to address a portfolio of projects arising from these results
Dr Reidun Twarock
Viruses have highly symmetrical external shells formed from proteins that encapsulate the viral genome. Dr Twarock has developed a method for encoding the structures of these protein shells that pinpoint the locations of the proteins and the bonds between them. With collaborators Professor Cristian Micheletti, from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy, and Professor Anne Taormina, from the University of Durham, she has used these results to model the assembly of viruses.
Subsequent work with collaborators Professor Peter Stockley, Dr Neil Ranson and their groups at the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds suggests that not only the geometry of the viral capsids themselves but also the full three-dimensional structures of the particles are constrained. The implications of this discovery on virus assembly are currently being investigated.
Dr Twarock said: "I would like to use the Leverhulme Trust Award to build up a group of mathematicians, computational biologists and biophysicists to address a portfolio of projects arising from these results."
This grant will enable Dr Twarock to expand her group and fund three postdoctoral positions and four PhD students. The group will collaborate closely with the Astbury Centre in Leeds, and they will jointly organise a workshop on Mathematical Virology at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in August 2007.
Dr Twarock’s group will be part of the York Centre of Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA), including biologists, mathematicians and computer scientists, which is based in the Department of Biology at York.
Notes to editors:
- More information on Leverhulme Trust Research Leadership Awards at www.leverhulme.ac.uk/grants_awards/grants/Research_Leadership_Awards
- Dr Reidun Twarock joined the Department of Mathematics at the University of York as a Marie Curie Fellow in April 2000, working on the mathematical structures of quasicrystals and fullerenes. She then took up a Lectureship in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at City University in London, where she applied similar mathematical techniques to viruses particularly the structure of the cancer-causing viruses in the family of Papovaviridae. Since 2004, Dr Twarock has been an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow working on mathematical models for viruses. In March 2005, she returned to the University of York as Anniversary Reader jointly in Biology and Mathematics. Her work on Mathematical Virology has recently been showcased at the EPSRC-organised Engaging Maths event at the House of Commons to draw attention to the importance of mathematics research. www.epsrc.ac.uk/Publications/Other/EngagingMaths.htm
- York Centre of Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA) houses a number of researchers and their groups, among them Dr Leo Caves (Biology), Dr James Cussens (Computer Science), Dr Jon Pitchford (Biology/Mathematics) and Dr Julie Wilson (Chemistry/Mathematics), as well as two recently appointed RCUK fellows, Dr Dan Franks (Biology/Computer Science) and Dr Andrew (Jamie) Wood (Biology/Mathematics). These scientists form part of the larger cross-campus interdisciplinary community of YCCSA, whose activities include an active programme of seminars and an electronic forum for discussions and announcements.