User:Whirlwind

From the Manchester Bio-Modelling Network

Name

Thomas Williamson

Email

Thomas.Williamson@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Position

I am a second year PhD student working under the supervision of Lubomira Stateva (Michael Smith Building) and Doug Kell (MIB). I've just started my second year, and my PhD project title is "An Integrative Mathematical Model of the cAMP Pathway in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Affiliation

MIB, The University of Manchester

Research Interests

As you might have guessed from my project title, I am interested in making a stoichiometric mathematical model to describe and explain the cAMP pathway in S. cerevisiae. The cAMP pathway has a hand in controlling a multitude of processes in yeast, including the cell cycle, reponse to nutrients and psuedohyphal differentiation.

At first glance, the cAMP pathway seems straightforward and ideal to model. Cyclic AMP itself is a small diffusable signalling molecule. It is made by just one enzyme, adenylate cyclase (Cyr1p). It is hydrolyzed by two enzymes, the phosphodiesterases Pde1p and Pde2p. Cyclic AMP has only one function in yeast, and that is to activate PKA (Protein Kinase A). However, after further inspection the pathway becomes much more complicated. It is my goal to construct a model of this complexity.

Website