PhD Student Publishes in Top Nature Journal

Michelle Baker, a PhD student in the Mathematical Medicine and Biology group, and her supervisor Professor Markus Owen, have contributed to a recent article in Nature Immunology, a world-leading journal in the field of immunology.

The article, in collaboration with colleagues from the School of Life Sciences at Nottingham and other partners in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, deals with the transcription factor STAT-1 (a protein that helps control the genetic response to viral and bacterial infections). The key experimental discovery was that STAT-1 needs to polymerise in order to bind DNA and regulate immune responses, even if only a single binding site is present. Ordinary differential equations were used to model the binding of STAT1 to DNA at varying concentrations and polymerisation strengths. This showed that STAT1 polymerisation can indeed strongly increase the binding site occupancy even where there is only a single binding site. The mathematical models constructed complemented the experimental data produced by the team, and provided a more general explanation for the phenomenon.

Full details of the article can be seen at the journal website.