Members of RUBi
Back (left to right): Fortunate & Matthys; Front (left to right): Ozlem, Nico & Ansie
_________________________
Ozlem Tastan Bishop
Link to Dr. Ozlem Tastan Bishop's web page
________________________
Rowan Hatherley (Honours)
________________________
Ansie Yssel (MSc)
About me:
I was born in Potchefstroom in 1982 and matriculated in 2000 from Ventersdorp Highschool. My favourite subject in school was Biology, but History showed that scientists have a tendency to die in poverty due to malaise and fatigue, so in my naivety (with lots of $$$ signs in mind), I decided to study Computer Science at UNISA. One day, while I was supposed to be studying for a C++, exam I read a very interesting article in The National Geographic about the rise of life on earth. I decided there and then that I would rather take the risk and study something that is actually appealing to me. I enrolled at the North West University, and found it incredibly hard to choose 2 main subjects out of all the subjects that the Natural Sciences Faculty had to offer, but in the end I picked Zoology and Microbiology and took extra Botany. Now I regret not taking Biochemistry, because that would have made a lot more sense, considering that I am currently doing Bio-informatics.
About my project:
The title of my project is "The spatial evolution of the bacterial chemotaxis proteins". Chemotaxis is the most ancient sensory-motor process in nature and allows motile bacteria to detect changes in their environment and move towards more favourable conditions. My project includes the construction of homology models of the chemotaxis proteins found in different Bacillus strains, as well as investigating how changes in one protein leads to changes in the proteins that it interacts with, thereby causing a change in phenotype.
Other interests:
I go camping and rock climbing as often as possible. When I have time to relax I like to watch Star Trek or read Science-Fiction novels.
________________________
Fortunate Mokoena (MSc)
Malaria catastrophic disease caused by a protozoan parasite of the Plasmodium species. This disease affects the lives of billions of people, causes millions of clinical cases and thousands death cases annually. The virulent Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are responsible for most this alarming number of death cases. Control efforts to curb the spread of malaria are complicated by parasite resistance to most drugs currently available.
Papain family cysteine proteases have been proposed as promising drug targets, as they play major roles as hemoglobinases during parasite life cycle. Falcipain-2 of Plasmodium falciparum is the most abundant and widely studied. Deletion of a gene coding for this enzyme has resulted in accumulation of undegraded hemoglobin and has cured mouse model.
The cornerstone of my research is to understand how cysteine protease of virulent Plasmodium falciparum (falcipain-2 and falcipain-3) and Plasmodium vivax (vivapain-2 and vivapain-3) function as hemoglobinases. I am tackling this problem by protein-protein docking and analyzing the protein-protein interactions between this cysteine proteases and hemoglobin.
________________________
Matthys Kroon (MSc)
Widescale in-silico sequence and structural analysis of papain-like cysteine protease family
Papain like cysteine proteases play major roles in many eukaryotic pathogenic diseases like Malaria, Leishmaniasis, Bilharzia and more. Human members of the family play roles in bone and cartilage renewal protein turnover and antigen
representation. As such they can sometimes play a role in tissue invasion during cancer and in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis.
There is a large amount of data available on papain-like cysteine proteases including over 2500 protein sequences and over 250 crystal structures. Analysing this data is a challenge. Usually only a fraction of the data is used for a given enquiry or summaries of the data are used.
This project aims to analyse all the data on the family as a whole, including data on the cystatin family. (A large protein family of cystein protease inhibitors) A secondary aim of the project is to produce the tools and information platform to make such analysis easier in future.
Optimal usage of data is a major challenge as more and more data becomes available as it becomes more difficult to handle it sensably. At some point our human minds become overwhelmed and we have to resort to computer solutions. Unfortunately a computer cannot be commanded by our thoughts and therefore much care has to go into creating languages, interfaces and programs that enable us to use their power effectively.
_______________________
Nicodemus Mautsa (PhD)
______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
