Flores Lab student Matthew McDaniel to present at AAPS

If you happen to be at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists meeting next month, stop by and see Matt McDaniel presenting his poster on Monday, Nov 14 at 3PM.  His work details our collaborative use of mathematical models to explore responses to lipid emulsion therapy following local anesthetic toxicity in a virtual population.

“Parameter Estimation on a Physiologically Based PK/PD Model for Dose-Dependent Intravenous Lipid Emulsion Therapy in Rats“

Matthew McDaniel, Kevin Flores, Belinda Akpa

Synthetic and Systems Biology Discussion Group kicks off at NC State

Starting on Friday, Sept 2 and monthly on the first Friday of each month, the Synthetic and Systems Biology (SyntheSys) cluster at NC State will be hosting a discussion series to foster cross-campus interactions and collaborations.

Meetings: first Friday of every month in David Clark Labs 101. Howling Cow ice cream, coffee, and socializing will begin at 3:30pm, and discussion session will run from 4-5pm.

The group’s goals are to:

  1. Help students, postdocs, and faculty efficiently learn about relevant methodologies (“Hammers”) and biological questions (“Nails”).
  2. Promote collaborations and identify unexpected synergies.

Each session will focus on a specific theme with a highly interactive format of:

  1. A “Hammer talk”: 15 minute talk about a method (detailed background and identification of strengths and limitations)
  2. A “Nail talk”: 15 minute talk on a related “Nail” (i.e., biological question)

Speakers will focus on informative background material, current hurdles, and ambitious ideas. Each speaker will be followed by a 10-minute discussion period to permit Q&A and idea-generation. We will close with a final 10-minutes for open exchange.

Strategic enrichment grant for interdisciplinary work in systems biology and quantitative genetics

PI Akpa and colleagues have been awarded funds to support an interdisciplinary research effort blending systems biology, quantitative genetics, and immunology. (Announcement)

Project title: A systems biology approach to assess host transcriptomics and virus kinetics in reproductive gilts in the face of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.

Lead PIs: Belinda Akpa (CVM) & Nick Serão (CALS)

Co-PIs: Johnathan Fogle, Glen Almond, Mark Knaeur

Our thanks to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine for their support!

Seminar @Clemson University’s Department of Chemistry

clemson tigerDr Akpa thanks the wonderful people at Clemson Chemistry for hosting her for a day of discussing fluorescent nanoparticles, peptoids, antioxidants and more before her seminar on ‘Math + Biochemistry + Physiology: An examination of toxicity and lipid-mediated toxicity reversal using integrative physiological models’.