Virus and Phage Biology
Studying viruses and phages.
Bacteriophage assembly in vivo and in vitro
The Teschke lab performs structural, biochemical, mutational analysis of bacteriophage capsids. Many viruses assemble proteinaceous capsids with high fidelity. The interaction energy between capsid subunits is weak but the overall structure is very stable. They seek to understand how these weak interactions give rise to complex structures using bacteriophage P22 as a model system.
Elucidating MS2 phage infection dynamics
The Srivastava Group is interested in applying quantitative systems biology to understand gene regulatory networks, metabolic networks, and signaling networks. Machine learning algorithms in conjunction with reaction kinetics theory are used extensively to mine experimental data and various publically available databases (e.g. GenBank, PubMed, etc.) to elucidate network architecture, discover new pathways/interactions, and generate novel hypotheses. Potential applications include more robust treatment of infectious diseases and cancer, as well as advancing and optimizing industrial biotechnology processes.